Going Soft
by andie000
Summary: Mandy has emotions... whether she wants to or not. Warning: contents may include idiots, cats, groundation, tongue piercings, nekkidness, top hats with Bettie Page on them, hotel rooms, fruit punch and, of course, a good strong dose of BillyXMandy.
1. Of Nightmares, Idiocy, & Comfort

(I die a little each time I contemplate the fact that... I do not own Billy and Mandy. If anything, they own me. Have a nice read.)

Mandy felt herself shivering, even under her pink comforter and 3 extra blankets. Her stomach twisted and ached. Although there was no mirror nearby, she knew she had dark circles under her eyes, extra-pale skin, and two flushed red areas on her greyish cheeks.

She was ill.

She swallowed this information rather bitterly. She was sick, and so, for the time being, at a physical disadvantage to most other people. At a mental disadvantage, too, if her fever progressed. And if she didn't live through this... Her scowl deepened. Hatred was as good a cure as anything- and loathing, she knew, would have her back on her feet in hours. If laughter was the best cure, and laughter was stupid and pointless, imagine what fury did- good, strong fury.

Mandy turned her head, and a clump of her hair pulled suddenly. She winced. Bedhead. She'd add that to her list of physical ailments. What she needed was some sort of slave- some sort of female slave- that could tend to her when she couldn't do it herself. Not like Billy, who knew nothing about girls, or Grim, who pretended to know a lot but most likely didn't.

"Hey-a Mandy!"

Mandy jumped a bit, but her scowl was back in no time, and deeper at that. "Billy," she snapped, "how many times do I have to tell you to. Stay. Out. _Of my room_?!" The force of the shout sent Billy rolling into the wall behind him. However, his habitual smile was back even faster than Mandy's habitual scowl was, and he sprang back to her side cheerfully.

"Hey-a Mandy," he repeated, as though nothing had happened. "Whatcha doin' in bed on your birthday?"

Mandy almost jumped again, but caught herself, turning her glare on Billy. Billy grinned back curiously. He was the only one who didn't seem to mind her angry, cold stare at all: through anger and danger, through punches and impatience, Billy had always trailed behind her dutifully, often comically, and she'd let him. Only for some sort of human company. Not that I need company, of course, she thought quickly, turning her face away.

"Hey-a M-"

"I'm sick! I'm sick, okay?"

"S-I-K, sick. But it's your birthday!" Billy placed his hands on the edge of her mattress and began to jiggle it violently. Mandy slapped him upside the head. Billy stopped moving the mattress.

"Billy-" Mandy began. She stopped, coughed, and pinched the area between her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. "Okay. We've been through this. For once, you're right: it is my birthday."

"YOUR SUH-WEET SIXTEEN!" Billy shouted.

"Uh, yeah," Mandy replied, eyeing him. "But at the same time, I am sick." Almost as if to reinforce this statement, a cold chill shot through her body, and she shivered violently. "S-s-so," she began again, teeth chittering, "I'm going to spend my birthday morning in bed, perhaps." Billy's jaw dropped. Mandy was finally satisfied- that meant at least part of what she;d said had gotten through to him... unusual.

"I may even spend all afternoon here." Billy's jaw dropped down further. He was looking at Mandy with what was probably the most horrified, forlorn expression he'd ever worn. Mandy looked at him and hesitated. Here she was, drawing out the agony as she always, always had, but now, for the first time, there was something else running through her mind: reluctance. Why was she doing this? Mandy looked away so that their eyes no longer met. Curse him and his little puppy dog face, she thought, he's trying to get what he wants- again. She steeled herself, wondering what was wrong with her- was she losing her touch? Did she have some sort of soft spot, heaven forbid? No, she decided; she couldn't just lose her touch.

Mandy hardened her heart and plowed onwards. "But most likely, I'll be in bed all day."

Billy's jaw dropped all the way to the floor. "But-"

"Yes," Mandy said flatly. She turned her back to him, expecting him to leave, and tried to get comfortable in her bed. With a fever, it was easier said than done. She would feel dreadfully cold, and curl into a little ball to try to preserve heat- then, she'd be too hot, and break into a sticky, slimy sweat, which took its time evaporating- it was evaporating still when another cold flash would come, making her even colder as the sweat dried. She did not remember sleeping, but was suddenly aware of feeling dazed, with all of her blankets twisted around her like a cocoon. She tossed and turned in this way for what felt like hours.

The truth was, it was only about half an hour since she'd turned away from Billy, when Grim showed up. "NOOO!" Billy shouted when he saw Grim. He'd been standing there for the past half hour, waiting for Mandy to talk to him (it had never crossed his mind that she might be getting too near deliria to speak), and now he lept up and tried to snatch Grim's scythe away. He failed, because Grim was not even carrying his scythe. Such trivial differences made no difference to Billy. He grabbed the object Grim was carrying anyway, placed his body between it and Grim, and fairly foamed at the mouth as he said, "You can't take her! I'll never let you take her! Grim, you may be my bestest friend, but Mandy is my bestest bestest bestest friend, and you can't have her!"

Grim took a step back. He raised an eyebrow. "I came to wish her a happy birthday. So take't easy."

Billy paused to look at the object he was holding. It was a taut black string- tied to the top was a helium balloon, a black one, with a pink flower in the middle. There was a very one-sided awkward silence, during which Grim fidgeted and Billy picked his nose unconcernedly. Billy tried to tie the end of the string to one of Mandy's pink bedposts, but, lacking the skills to tie a knot, he simply let go of the balloon and let it bob to the ceiling.

"Oh, brother," Grim said under his breath. He left the room, leaving Billy and a terribly ill Mandy alone once again.

Billy watched her like he watched the television; blankly, staring, either utterly inattentive or utterly rapt, it was impossible to tell which. Unless, that is, an observer knew what to look for: the way his face lit up when she tossed towards him, the way he leaned forward slightly when she groaned in her sleep and clutched the sheets around her, the way color came to his cheeks when the sheets came off a bit and he saw how her sweat made her pink nightie cling to her.

He watched her the entire time not knowing a coherent thought.

-GABM-

Mandy blinked and sat up. Where was she? She had trouble remembering. Her head spun and she felt nauseous... rather than her own bed in her own bedroom, she was sitting somewhere... strange. She squinted at her surroundings. The ground was dry, cracked, and dusty, leading her to believe she was in some sort of desert; yet, the sky was as blank and white as a fresh sheet of paper.

She stopped squinting, but her eyes remained narrowed. She was certainly not in Endsville anymore. Whoever had moved her from her resting place would pay. Dearly. Other than the ground and the sky, there was nothing- no trees, no animals, no buildings. Even the ground, with all its cracks and crevasses, was dusty and boring.

"Hey!" she yelled suddenly. Her voice fell dead in the air. Of course it would, she realized, with nothing for the sound to vibrate off of: there were no land formations. She glared at the turf with furious, futile intensity. She couldn't even start an avalanche or anything. She supposed, because she was the only one here, that she'd finally taken everything over. But what was the use in that? There were no citizens to punish. There were no rebellions to crush.

Deep under the ground, something started to rumble. Mandy felt her eyebrows raise up; she was slightly worried about that noise. It meant- back on Earth, anyway- that there was about to be an-

"Earthquake," she spoke quietly. Her voice rang with the same muffled deadness that it had before, but now, not even Mandy took notice: the rumble had turned to a roar as the ground began to pitch and shake violently. The cracks looked much less boring when they were being tossed into the air. Mandy's stomach lurched as the ground was suddenly removed from under her feet. There was no way she could land on her feet this time. Everything had been caught off balance, everything was tossed helter-skelter into the air like some sort of lazy pizza god was tossing up the crust of the planet... Mandy cried out as a violent wave rose and smacked her right out of the air. She squeezed her eyes shut. Laying flat on her stomach, her fingers scrabbled uselessly in the dust, searching for something to cling to. The knowledge that there was nothing left a bitter taste in her mouth. At least-

Billy.

"Billy," she whispered. She could do nothing but whisper as wave after wave knocked her breath away. Where was he? Back on Earth? Was he here on this planet, maybe also experiencing what she was, but not as able to protect himself? She cursed him and worried for him. If he didn't live through this, she'd- she'd-

She started to cry. She hated herself for crying, especially for crying for him, but overpowering the hatred was the certainty that he was dead somewhere, his body broken and bloody on the ground. She knew it, somehow she knew it. The feeling was indescribable... awful. God, where was he? Where was he?

Her muscles slacked. Each quake pummeled her and made her flop around like a rag doll. She didn't notice. The violent rumbling, even, was a distant rushing in her ears. She didn't care.

The ground opened up into a wide, grinning chasm. Mandy barely noticed it through the salt water- so much salt water... the ground tossed her body around, and she guessed she was being hurt. Fine. She'd endured physical pain before, but this new feeling- it hurt worse, a lot worse, and she didn't resist as the ground pitched up and sent her into the bottomless chasm.

She couldn't wait to hit the ground. Yet, as she wished for her death, her body slowed down immensely. She began to float, back and forth, as a feather would. Her tears dripped from her face and fell before her at normal speed.

Her sobs echoed off the walls of the chasm. At any other time, she would have been relieved to hear the echoing... but really, did that matter? Did anything matter? What did matter?

She left her thoughts above her as she slowly was rocked back and forth. Down, down, until the opening of the chasm was just a tiny pinprick of light. Eventually, even that disappeared. Her heart was still broken, but the rocking and the darkness were very calming, and gradually she ceased to cry out. The silence was, if anything were a proper term at a time like this, golden. Through the awful knowledge that she'd lost- well, everything, Mandy closed her eyes and began to drift into a gloomy, heavy sleep.

She hoped there was no morning.

-GABM-

Her eyes opened. The first thing she was aware of was her face feeling oddly stiff- what- Her glare snapped into place. She knew that feeling. It meant she'd been crying. That was unacceptable.

She tried to rub her face off, to destroy any and all evidence, but instead something slapped onto her forehead. A cold, refreshing something. She lay back and sighed. Someone was sponging her forehead, and being gentle about it, at that. She still had an awful feeling at the pit of her stomach, as she often did when waking up after nightmares, but told herself over and over that nothing was wrong. It's fine, she said to herself hollowly. It's fine. It's fine.

"Yer awake!"

Suddenly, everything really was fine.

Billy whipped the cloth off of Mandy's forehead and gave her a tight, bonecrushing hug, making her ribs crackle. Over the years, he'd grown stronger, and she'd grown slightly more fragile (much as she'd have liked to deny it), a fact he often neglected to remember. Mandy had a suspicion that he'd never quite grow up.

"Gosh, for a few minutes there you weren't lookin' too good, you were kinda struggling and groaning and clinging to your sheets, and you said my name a few times, so I picked you up and rocked you for a little while, and I hope that's okay with you, but anywho, you stopped being all upset-like but were still crying all over my shirt- see? It's wet! And anyway, it made me..." He clung to himself and gave her a searching look.

Mandy knew what he meant. For once, she wasn't quite sure how to word it, either. "I know what you mean. Be quiet."

"I've never seen you cry before," Billy whispered to her, quietly.

"Billy, I'm a stoic."

Billy dropped Mandy, startling her. She hadn't even realized he'd been holding her. "Stoic!" he proclaimed idiotically. "Is that a kind of rock? We should excavate some stoic- I ate a rock once! It was sooooo crunchy that it rattled my brain when I chewed on it!"

"That's impossible, Billy, since it is a well-known fact that you don't have a brain."

"Captain Fathead has a brain!"

"Down, Billy. Try to think about this very, very carefully... Now: you are not Captain Fathead."

Billy scratched his empty head, arranging his face into his peculiar version of a thoughtful expression. A strand of drool began to drip from his mouth, and after a few minutes, he sucked it back up.

Mandy shuddered, partly from disgust and partly from another cold chill. "Never mind, imbecile. I can see that you're... you're..." She fell asleep fitfully. Billy blinked at her. He was still on her bed. A very ugly squirrel tapped at the window with a large nut, and Billy sternly told it "SHHH" which made spit flecks fly all over the room.

Seconds later: "I wanna play the sleep game!"

Billy didn't bother with the covers- they were sweaty and tangled-so he just flopped down and curled up against her. Geez, Mandy's really warm, he thought with a bit of surprise. The thought took less than a second to be wiped from his mind, but it was enough to make him sleepier.

He squinched his eyes shut and made various snoring noises. Very soon, however, his eyes smoothed out. His snores began to come easily and evenly. Next to him, his friend also slept, her nightgown wet and her hair messed up, and Billy unconsciously moved closer. His hat fell off. He began to dream of giggling dwarves. -

GABM-

Teeheehee.

Man, them dwarves sounded realistic!

Aha, ha ha, HAHAHA!

Sinister, too!

Billy's eyes snapped open. In an instant, he was sitting up and smiling idiotically. Someone was still laughing. Had the evil dwarves come with him this time?

No, no. It was only Grim. He was standing next to Mandy's bed, watering from the eyes and slapping his knee, gesturing hilariously at the bed. "Hi there, Grim!" Billy said, grinning. "What's so funny?" Grim said nothing but continued to laugh. Billy, fed up with waiting for a response, began to chortle along with him.

"Grim..." Mandy said weakly. The Reaper must have woken her up with that ugly laughter, Billy thought. And he didn't like the way Mandy had said "Grim" instead of "Billy". "What's all this about? I was sleeping. Out, you."

Billy stuck his tongue out at Grim. "Say 'Billy,'" he said to Mandy.

She raised an eyebrow. "Uh... 'Billy.'" Billy was still sitting at the edge of the bed, and at the sound of his name, he grinned in delight. Grim wiped a tear away and smiled foolishly. "What's going on? What have you two morons done now?" Mandy demanded.

"Ooh-hoo, girl! Oh my- oh my-" Grim suffered through another bout of laughter. "You two were sleeping- all up against each other- with your little bodies all pressed together, just like little kitties together! Aww!"

"Grim," Mandy said. Her voice wrapped around Grim's bones and chilled them to the core. Although she delivered her words in her usual deadpan, there was something underneath, something not quite hidden from the skeleton, that burned and twisted with acidic fury. Grim stopped smiling. His tears of mirth were exchanged for a nervous sweat. Billy, seemingly oblivious to the danger, was busy making ugly faces and blowing raspberries.

"It isn't funny. It isn't cute. And if you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever bring it up again, I will personally see to it that each and every bone in your body is ground through my grandfather's antique meat grinder. One. At. A. Time." Grim gnawed on his fingernails until he was hurting himself. Strangely enough, he didn't really notice the pain. "So don't mention it, Grim. Don't tell anyone else about it. As a matter of fact, don't even think about it. Nothing happened. You hear me? Nothing happened."

"I hear you," Grim replied faintly.

"That's what I thought. Get out of my room. Now." Grim gladly exited, leaving Billy, Mandy, and the hellish atmosphere all behind him. Billy watched him go with a satisfied, "so there" expression on his face.

Billy turned to Mandy as the door shut. "Mandy, please don't be mad at me. Grim's so mean. I just wanted to play the sleep game. You don't hate me, do you?"

"Of course I hate you, Billy," she answered. Her voice contained such comforting tones that Billy neglected to comprehend the actual words.

Instead, he wiped his brow in relief, and flopped back down next to her. "I like your nightie," he said.

She decided to let him stay, annoying or not. "When I get over this, I'm going to give you the most horrible beating of your life, Billy," she said.

Billy looked eager. They hadn't had a proper fist fight since- since, well, Mandy had gotten older; more... womanly. Billy had hit puberty first... and when Mandy had, something in him made him think that maybe she shouldn't be too roughed up anymore. He scratched his head. If she wanted to fight, it was okay, wasn't it? But he didn't want to hurt her... he looked at her, confused and trying to be sneaky about it. When he tried to mull it over, though, his thoughts all buzzed off like doomed flies, and all he knew was that he was happy about it. "Okay! How's about at my house after school tomorrow?"

"Deal," Mandy said. Her eyes narrowed. She looked sinister and threatening- just not to Billy.

"Are you gonna wear your nightie?"

Mandy was startled by the blatant desire in his tone. She covered it up with outrage, telling herself that, after all, Billy used that tone when talking about a lot of things: snow cones, videogames, and sandwiches, to name a few.

She forced herself to ignore it. "Of course not. Considering the amount of skin this shows, it would be inappropriate to wear such a garment to class, Billy. Such differences will become apparent to you when you stop being stupid. Which I doubt will ever happen."

Billy pouted and sat Indian-style across from her. "It isn't that inappropriate. My mommy and daddy fought once in bed, and they were butt-naked."

Mandy heaved a sigh. She could hardly believe he was sixteen. "Obviously you haven't paid attention in Health."

"Obviously, I have! I'll fight you over it!"

"When I feel better, Billy."

Billy folded his arms across his chest. "Fine! Have it your way! And quit rubbing your gorgeous nightie that makes you look gorgeous in my gorgeous face, okay?!" His anger fled as suddenly as it had come. Billy giggled. "BoyIcan'twaitforschool! See ya lay-tah, Mandy!" With that, he hopped off the bed and ran from the room.

Mandy watched him dash out. Then, she closed her eyes, drifting into an empty, fevered sleep.


	2. Of Alone Time

**AN: **First off, thanks _very_ much to those who submitted reviews on Chapter 1. It means a lot, it really does. And- yeah, this update came supa-fast, but in a few days I must go on vacation for two weeks, to a place where the palm trees grow and there's no internet to be found. I'll update as soon as I get home. Promise. So... have a nice read.

Mandy opened her eyes. Her alarm clock buzzed out a dire funeral march. She raised a fist and smashed down on the clock. It was silenced. She cast a glance at it: 6:30 on a Monday. Time for school. The thought cast a gloomy pall over her already bleak mood, and she stretched and rose reluctantly- she didn't want to get up, even though, if she were to believe her clock, she'd just slept for 20 hours straight. Her fever was gone, though. There was a bright spot.

She was also grimly looking for ward to beating up Billy. Why had he... she shook her head. He'd wasted his niceties on someone who hadn't needed them. Picking her up and rocking her like a child was ridiculous, a blatant testimony to his blatant stupidity, and humiliating to her. Being held and comforted was not acceptable. It showed signs of weakness. And weak, Mandy thought sharply as she began to get dressed, was not something she planned on being. The idiot was to be punished.

At the same time, she wanted to hold back from actually hurting Billy. After all, a friendship where one hurt the other deeply was no longer a real friendship... it became a guarded acquaintanceship, a wheel of abuse. Much as Mandy enjoyed abuse, causing Billy and real injuries didn't seem quite- right. Not quite fitting of the situation. If she did hurt him, it would be exploiting his stupidity; she wouldn't descend to that level. Her _real _enemies were all perfectly capable, thank you very much.

So she told herself as she buttoned up her school blouse.

She sternly told herself not to think of Billy so much. His naïveté could almost be charming, at times. Almost. If Mandy wasn't Mandy, she might have been charmed by it herself. And what a disgusting possibility that was.

She brutally curbed her thoughts towards school. What did she need today? Were her hair and uniform pristine? Were there any tests? She surveyed her reflection with a critical, objective eye: of course, her hair was in place, and her uniform was fresh and spotless. Her frown deepened slightly as she looked at her ankles; they were a bit too thin and delicate-looking, and her Maryjanes contrasted and showed them off as if they were something fabulous.

The rest of her uniform was filled out in just the right places... places that Irwin was fond of gawking at. Mandy shuddered. It was time to request a uniform that didn't show so much detail- it wasn't a lot as it was, but any at all was a humiliation, an open testament that her body was sexually ripe.

However, thousands of years of evolution was something even Mandy couldn't beat.

Survival of the damn species, she thought angrily. What did she care whether the species survived or not? And why did it have to survive in such disgusting ways?

Mandy glared into her mirror. Her reflection glared back. Pale, clear skin, dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, blonde hair. Fine. There was nothing wrong with her except those terrible little ankles.

It was time for school.

-GABM-

"Nuh-uh," Sperg announced decisively. He had Billy by the collar, and in his other hand he held a floppy red baseball cap: Billy's hat. Mandy had requested of Sperg that he let them both go.

Mandy almost hesitated when he's refused. Sperg had turned into an absolute bull these past few years, and she couldn't beat him up anymore. Chances were, he wouldn't respond to her threats as long as he knew that she knew he had Billy as a punching bag.

It took Mandy less thann a second to figure a solution out.

"I can bring you someone even more beatable, Sperg. And I bet you're getting tired of beating this-" she nodded at Billy- "loser. Go for a new one. You'll find it refreshing."

Sperg scratched his head. What did this chick know about beating people up? "Prove it," he sneered.

Mandy nodded again, her eyes fixed on his eerily, and walked away. Sperg smiled at her retreating back. "Hey," he said to Billy, "your friend has a tight little uniform." He shook Billy roughly by the collar- Billy's teeth rattled in his head, and he struggled towards his hat. Sperg continued blithely: "To match her tight little body. Say, if she wasn't Mandy, I'd like to make her squeal... ooh, she's comin' back. Her shirt sure is tight across her-"

"Hey Iiiiiiiirwiiiiiiin," Billy called, "whatcha doing with that blindfold on? Why's Mandy holding your hand? Why are you walking towards me n' Sperg? Why do you have glasses? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Irwin reached up to remove his blindfold. Mandy slapped his hand away. "Where are we going again, baby? What's Billy talking about, yo?"

"Ignore Billy. He's an idiot. We're going someplace warm and magical," Mandy deadpanned.

Irwin grinned sloppily, clasping his hands together. "Where the green fields go on forever and there's always a rainbow in the sky and we can roll around in the flowers together-"

"Shut up. We're here."

Irwin whipped his blindfold off, smiling foolishly. "Boy that was quick-"

His smile disappeared as a shadow loomed over him. "-Y-yo..."

Billy felt a sharp pain as his tailbone connected with the floor. A few feet from him, his red cap rolled to a stop, and he began to crawl towards it. Then- an even sharper pain, in his scalp: Mandy had grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him to his feet. "At least pretend not to be a cur, Billy."

Billy giggled. "You said 'curb.'"

Mandy let go of him, and he dropped to all fours again immediately. Billy snuffled his way to his baseball cap, eagerly jamming it onto his head (after licking it once) and turned to Mandy.

She wasn't there.

Billy scratched his head. "D'uhh... um... Mandy?"

She still wasn't there.

"_Mandy_!" he shouted, "_You know I can't find my way to Chemistry without you, right? RIGHT?!_"

Several students looked at him curiously; seeing who it was, they suddenly lost interest and went about their usual business. Billy gnawed his fingernails down. A dim, anxious occurence that could have been a thought registered inside his mind: he'd lost Mandy. For the first time ever in school, she wasn't there to hit him, to insult him, to sigh in exasperation as she led him to Chemistry class.

He didn't knw what to do.

"Ehmm..." Billy started out cluelessly. Okay, he thought, I'll think this out myself! I need no help! Where did Mandy usually go?

The bell rung. Students made their way to various classes, and Billy broke out in a sweat. Gosh, how should he know where he went? Where Mandy went? He screwed up his face, trying to remember...

A ghostly image of his friend flicked on in the inside of his eyelids. "_Billy_," snapped Memory Mandy, "_do I have to tell you how to get to class every single day_?"

A ghostly image of Memory Billy appeared and nodded his head, grinning.

Memory Mandy threw her hands up. "_Fine! I give up! The Chemistry room is the 3rd door on the left in the 2nd corridor on the right as you walk into the school's front door. And don't expect me to help you again_!"

Memory Mandy poofed out of existence.

Memory Billy looked at real Billy. "_You got a ham sammich_?"

"No," real Billy replied sadly.

Memory Billy poofed out of existence, too, and real Billy opened his eyes. Well, easy! He'd just take the 2nd corridor on the right-

His plan was already doomed: he didn't know left from right!

He screwed up his eyes again, and this time, an apparition of Ms. Butterbean filled his vision. "You write letters with your right hand, Billy," she said sweetly. Billy opened his eyes before she'd even poofed. Now there was no stopping him!

Unfortunately, there was another complication.

Billy couldn't write.

-GABM-

Mandy stared at the clock... where was that doofus? She'd meant it when she told Billy he wasn't getting any more help from her, but found herself wishing she had anyway. Mindy was annoying her, and Billy wasn't even here to out-annoy Mindy.

Mandy stared at the clock. On the other hand, that twerp should be able to take care of himself for a change. Mandy did need a rest once in a while, and it was difficult (to say the least) when Billy was always off, getting into trouble.

Mandy wouldn't have been surprised if that hyperactive fool ran into every classroom in the building before finding the right one. But, if that were the case, wouldn't his hyperactive legs have been able to run into every room by now? She shook her head. He'd be fine.

Five minutes, ten. Why hadn't he arrived?

Mandy raised her hand. "May I go to the bathroom?" she finally grumbled.

The Chemistry teacher, a pale, stuttering man with a large turban, smiled at her nervously. "Of c-c-course, Mandy. B-by all means, leave!" He swallowed, patted the back of his turban, and smiled again wanly. Mandy gave a disgusted snort and left.

Outside the classroom, the hallway was dark and deserted. Mandy closed her eyes, soaking up some alone time. It was very quiet. Somewhat cold as well. Reluctantly, she remembered that her time out here was limited, and her eyes opened back up into their perpetual scowl. _If I were an idiot, where would I be?_

Mandy's brain quickly fired back solutions. He'd be in the cafeteria. Reading comics in the hall. At home, given up on school. Outside playing by himself on the swingset (though he was 16). All sorts of other disgusting places, or maybe even another dimension, where he'd be prancing around and infuriating demonic nightmare-things.

Mandy had just under 5 minutes for her bathroom break.

She closed her eyes, listening for any stupid noises that might betray Billy's whereabouts. It would almost have relieved her to hear his annoying giggles come floating down the hall- it would have saved her a lot of trouble, anyway. But, of course, she heard nothing. No giggles. And somehow that annoyed her even more.

Her shoes made muffled noises as she walked down the hall. The sound reminded her of her vulnerable little ankles. Mandy ground her teeth furiously. If Billy didn'tshow up soon, she'd-

"Hey, kid, how's my fist taste?" A familiar voice sneered. It was followed by an equally familiar smacking noise.

"Not as good as a peanut butter-and-mustard pie! _Ouch_!"

Mandy froze.

"I'll give you some pie if you let me go," Billy continued. His voice was scared, but he was overlaying it with sugary, wheedling tones. "Yeah, and I'll give you a brisk reptile, and, uh, my dad! Ow-ouchies..."

"Fat chance, Loser McLoserface! You're alone and you're helpless without that little slut-"

Mandy's eyes widened.

"-And besides, why would I want your dad?"

A cold, acidic jet of Hell-flames seemed to blast through her veins. Her heart beat twice as fast, and her breathing came in short, ragged pants. Her fingers twitched. All she could think of was mutilation. Her aura vibrated with outrage as she stepped around the corner, into the sight of Billy and Sperg.

"Hi Mandy! Gee whiz your face is grey. Are ya sick again?" Billy asked happily.

Mandy suddenly hated his innocent little face. Without stopped on her way to Sperg, she lifted him up and threw him, and he slammed into the wall.

Sperg didn't have time to process the fact that Mandy was about to kill him. Her slender arms shot out and she squeezed his neck between her hands. Her anger was oozing out where Sperg was choking, but somehow, Mandy's hatred didn't seem to be leaving. She felt savage happiness as Sperg's eyes rolled back. He began to jerk around spasmodically, but Mandy kept a firm, iron grip on him. "I made you a deal," she whispered in his ear. "You went back on it. You insulted me. You thought I wasn't watching. But I'm _always_ watching, Sperg. And now, I'm afraid, you will have to deal with the consequences of my revenge."

Sperg's neckbones popped and crackled. Mandy wanted them to snap, too. The bully was going blue, now, and he was twitching rather than struggling. Tears ran down his cheeks. I'm killing him, Mandy thought apathetically.

She kneed him in the groin and let go of him. Billy watched, wide-eyed, as Sperg sank to the floor, thin purple marks adorning his throat. He gave a wheeze, curled up, and lay still. Mandy stared at him. "He's all... dead-like," Billy whispered in awe.

Mandy's throat was dry. "Yes, Billy." She nodded.

Billy regained his Billy composure immediately. "But, Mandy, that's so CO-OOL! He was all, punch, punch, and you were all, toss-me-into-a-wall-strangle-Sperg WA-CHOW-A! And then, and _then_ you kicked that happy spot and made him be just like a hedgehog, with no supper at all. Thanks for protecting me, Mandy!"

She should have seen it coming: Billy enveloped her in one of his famous bonecrushers. He squeezed her, her startled face pressed into his neck as he sort of rocked her back and forth, and she nearly forgot herself and hugged him back.

That is, before she growled and punched him away again.

"_Ow_, deeheeheehee!" Billy giggled stupidly.

"Let's get back to Chemistry. Come on, Billy- follow me."


	3. Poor Grim

**AN:** Well, here's another chapter. Actually, it's more like half a chapter. (It's cough _tiny_.) Wellll, next update will be longer P. -Oh, and these days, I might not reply to every single review, but, never fear, your opinions are still being appreciated. So, have a nice little 30-second read!

The walk to Billy's house lasted far too long. For one (Mandy grudgingly admitted to herself) she was starting to look forward to going there; secondly, Sperg had recovered and was following them from a distance.

Billy was skipping about like a mad second grader. "I'm gonna fight Mandy, I'm gonna fight her, I'm gonna fight-" Here, he stopped directly in front of her, stuck his face inches from hers, and smiled foolishly, "-_you_."

Mandy glared and drew away. "Stop. Stay away. Walk faster." She started to jog down the sidewalk, and Billy trotted beside her.

"Duheeheehee. Where's the fire Mandy?" he babbled.

"No fire, dimwit." Mandy managed to slap him and keep jogging at the same time.

"But yer- _oof_!"

Mandy glanced behind her. Sperg had also increased his speed, and Billy, unaware, had tripped over something and was sprawled on the ground a few yards away. He sat there, dazed. Out of instinct, Mandy turned around and ran back to him. "Get up," she snapped, lifting him to his feet by his collar. "Come on, hurry it up- can't you run any faster? Come _on_, Billy."

Billy looked strained. The expression was odd on his usually smiling face. "I guess so, Mandy." He sounded pitiful and ashamed, and Mandy pushed away a tiny grain of guilt. "My ankle kind of-"

"Too bad," Mandy said sharply. She grabbed his forearm and half-led, half-dragged him as she continued to walk. She cursed under her breath. Billy gave her a startled look. He's slowing our- _my _progress, Mandy thought... what really irked her was that she couldn't help him any. All she had was cruel words. "Walk faster, _please _Billy, can't you see how important it is? Yeah, don't give me that look. I know you're in pain, and frankly, I don't care. I've dealt with worse pain than a stupid twisted ankle, so hurry it up."

Billy gave a small nod. At least he's smart enough to look worried, Mandy thought. She glanced at him as he walked. "I guess that's all I'm going to get out of you," she said grimly.

"I'm sorry, Mandy." Billy looked ready to cry, but was walking at a decent clip.

Mandy shot him another glance. He was so pitiful right now- pitiful in ways that he never was, pitiful because he wasn't coming up to scratch and because he _knew_ he wasn't coming up to scratch. Mandy looked away, trying not to feel too miserable. She almost wanted to tell him he was doing alright.

Mandy bit down on her lip. Now was the wrong time for angst.

"There's your house, Billy," she said, almost kindly.

"!_Hola, mi casa_!" Billy shouted, forever the idiot, and Mandy raised an eyebrow at him.

Billy arrived at last on his doorstep. Mandy let go of his arm as he rang his doorbell, once, twice, three times.

Mandy peered at him and decided he'd never get it by himself. "Just go inside."

Billy obliged cheerfully, flinging the door open so hard that it smashed a door-sized hole in the wall. His mother was visible through the new "door." Her eye twitched, but she continued to smile mechanically as Mandy stepped inside the hole. "Harold?" Gladys called, voice cheerful and quavering. "Did our son just knock _another_ wall down?"

"Relax, babe," Harold said smoothly, as his arm snaked around her waist. "We have that set of revolving doors you've always wanted now."

"So we do, a_ha_, so we do!" Gladys answered, looking disturbed.

Mandy ignored them both. "Billy, I'll be waiting to fight you in your bedroom."

"_Let's do it_," Billy replied, ridiculously intensely.

"Son!" Harold bellowed. He looked shocked. "What have I told you about sex?"

"We aren't gonna do _that_, Dad," an unphased Billy replied. "We're just gonna fight!"

"Oh, okay. Just don't get sketchy about it. I remember once, your mother and I had a fight and we were butt-naked! Have a blast, son."

Billy grinned and turned towards his friend. Mandy was looking back at him, her cheeks scarlet, her glare deepened very much. Billy swallowed nervously and his grin faded a tad. For once, he knew when to be afraid. Rather than leaving her to her misery, he grabbed her wrist and limped up the stairs, dragging her behind. "Golly," he said quietly, "you don't gots to be all sad about it. It's just making babies. Dad says it's fun like pie!"

Mandy said nothing. She jerked her wrist away and entered Billy's bedroom, leaving him behind to stare at her, perplexed.

Billy limped into his room after her. "But, Mandy, I- ow!"

Mandy sank her fist into his bulbous nose. "_That_ was for humiliating me-" she hit him again- "_that_ was for being stupid-" she hit him again- "_that's_ for annoying me-" she raised her fist- "and _this_- hey!"

Billy raised his hands and caught her fist easily. Mandy struggled to free herself. Billy held on, watching her strain and struggle against him and feeling something curious arise in his chest that hadn't been there before. He stared at her, and for a few moments, he stood still, looking into her eyes confusedly. He didn't know what he was feeling, but... "Um, Mandy? I kinda don't wanna fight anymore..."

Mandy slid her hand slowly out of his. "Of course not. You're injured." She felt drained suddenly, and disgusted with herself. She sat heavily down on the edge of his bed. She'd been mean to him today- no, cruel was more apt to describe it- and he'd done nothing. Absolutely nothing. The wheel of abuse, she thought simply. He was still there with her. However, she'd taken him for granted, something he didn't deserve. Why was she so bent on hurting him? He was as sweet as he'd always been.

It was Mandy who had changed.

She'd changed where she didn't want to change. Her feelings toward Billy had shifted very much since she'd met him. She was growing ridiculously fond of him- maybe even to the point of... actual friendship.

A weakness, she thought bitterly. It was a weakness. For Billy.

And in attempting to discipline herself, she was hurting him.

"Billy," Mandy said, trying for all she was worth to keep her voice detached.

"Yep?" he said blithely, collapsing down next to her.

"I may owe you an- apology. I've been extremely vile towards you today, and I think you should know that- that I didn't mean any of it." Mandy's vision blurred, and her heart thudded with... shame. Or something. "So, I owe it to you to say... I'm sorry."

Billy wrinkled his brow. He tilted his head in confusion, running a hand through his floppy orange hair, and gave her a sweet, uncertain smile. "Thanks. You don't gots to 'pologize, though."

"Then what do I have to do?" Mandy asked.

"Nothin'. You're all good right now, mmhmm! Nope, I ain't goin' nowhere." He placed his hand on top of hers and gave his classic giggle.

Mandy had never apologized to anyone before; doing so left her feeling miserable but quite a bit cleaner. "That's... great," she said, struggling to voice what she felt. There was something beautiful and very fragile about her thoughts; she couldn't place it or name it or even tell if it was happy or sad, but it didn't annoy her as mysteries usually did. It _was _great. Mandy had chosen the right word. And it was a relief, especially the last part of what Billy had said, because-

Because you can't live without him?

Mandy shook her head, her glare back in place and her thoughts purged of any more mushy feelings. "Good. I'm glad that's out of the way. Now, go tell your mother to bake a double batch of cookies. I feel like chocolate. Oh, and tell her it has to be _dark_ chocolate, or she'll be cooking for... quite some time."

Billy gave a cheerful salute and began to limp out the door.

Mandy rolled her eyes. "You know what, cripple? Forget it."

Billy gave a sigh of relief, sitting back down and smiling at his friend.


	4. Of Pointy Teeth & Barfights

**AN:** Okay, okay. This chapter's about twice as long as the last one. Yes, it goes in a completely different direction, but really, where would the story go otherwise? I have a big fat adventure planned. (And don't worry, I'd never deprive you of your BillyXMandyness!) So, read and enjoy.

Mandy blearily opened one bloodshot eye. Something was tapping her head, _hard_. She growled venomously and sat up. "Who the hell-"

A cold, bony hand covered her mouth. "Don't talk, girl, just get up."

Mandy ripped the hand off her mouth and tossed it aside unconcernedly. "Tell me what's going on," she demanded.

Grim was standing beside her bed, looking grave, scythe glowing ominously. He stooped for a second to pick up his hand. It reattached to his arm with a loud "crunch!" "I, uh, opened up dis random portal..." he began, suddenly sheepish. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

"Go on," Mandy said coldly.

"And, eh, Billy was sorta- dere wit me... and, heh, now it ain't me own fault, but he-"

Mandy jumped out of bed. In an angry, lightning-fast flash, she ripped Grim's skull off and kicked the rest of his body away. "You let him through," she growled in his face.

Without waiting for an answer, she gave a bestial snarl and smashed his head into the wall. "Hey!" he cried out in pain. Mandy raised the skull high and brought it down as hard as she could on her pink bedpost, and it stuck there, the way a corkboard would be stuck with a pushpin. Grim moaned in pain as his eyes drifted shut. Mandy paused, forcing her slamming heart to slow down with each beat, and noticed Grim's body collapsed in the corner.

She took his robe off and took his bones apart. The robe she looked at carefully before pulling it over her own head. It fit her slender frame decently.

The pile of disassembled bones was much more entertaining. Mandy quietly put them back together- just, not in the proper shape of a skeleton: when she'd finished, they formed a vulgar yet unmistakable shape. She unstuck Grim's unconscious head then, placing his mouth over the top of the shape, and gave a cold, half-amused snort as she surveyed her work. He'd be in for an unpleasant shock when he awoke.

Mandy wasn't sorry. Grim deserved what he got.

The scythe leaned up against her bedroom wall, not _quite_ forgotten.

Mandy walked slowly over to it and grasped it calmly. It was warm and vibrated slightly in her hold, and she gave a small smile as the power from it enveloped her hands, sending a warm, resonating feeling into her. The wood, as smooth as it was, didn't slip in her clutch.

She raised it high. _Shhhing!_

The green portal she'd opened swirled in front of her invitingly.

-GABM-

"Hey, you," Mandy said, prodding a giant, ugly blob with a yellow eye in the center of it.

"Uhhh, heyyyy," the being slurred slowly.

Mandy had teleported herself to an Underworld bar of sorts. The chamber was huge, dark, circular. Sickly green neon lights flickered on the walls. The floor was checked with black and neon pink, and the chairs and tables were elaborate and spiky, all behind a bar that appeared to be selling zombie five-year-olds vile alcoholic beverages.

The room was to her liking.

The blob Mandy was trying to talk to was hopelessly inebriated. It oozed slowly, and the substance it was made of was murky and unhealthy-looking. It had no visible mouth, but it found some way to speak- sort of. Mandy had a hard time understanding its blurry dialogue.

"Have you seen a small human boy? About yea high? Red hat, orange hair?"

"Ohhhh, uhhh..." it moaned. "I...uhhh, umm, uh-"

With that, the blob collapsed onto the floor, its eye dull.

Mandy gave a snort of disgust. Now she had to find some other nasty creature to question. The zombie child had passed out next to the bar, and its mother soon stumped along, singing in a loud, ugly voice, to pick up her poor child. Mandy shook her head at them. She wanted something sober.

The bartender, a scuzzy little man wearing a huge tophat with a detailed picture of Bettie Page pinned to it, would almost certainly be sober. Mandy drifted over to the bar casually.

"What can I get for ye, darlin'?" the man screeched at her, grinning. His teeth were each filed- or perhaps they were naturally like that- to a vicious little point.

"Information," she said quietly.

The man's smile disappeared by a few points. "It's a drink a question, darlin'," he hissed.

"I don't have money," snapped Mandy, equally as frightening.

The man laughed, and the noise was just as obnoxious and shrill as his speaking voice was. "There's a few unsuspecting blobs carrying money just over there, dear. Go earn some."

Mandy didn't hesitate in front of the bartender, but as she approached, she walked slower and slower. Who knew what those blob things were capable of? How many were there? She didn't mind starting trouble, especially to find Billy, but if something happened to her- well, there was no one else.

Mandy glanced behind her. The bartender was watching her and grinning maniacally. When he saw her looking, his grin increased and he waved a stubby arm at her. She ground her teeth in fury. He couldn't just smirk at her like that and expect her to fade into the shadows.

Mandy steeled herself and sprinted towards the blobs, hoping for their sake that they died quickly. They saw her coming and reared up, screeching. Mandy raised the scythe once again, feeling that unmistakable vibration of power in her hands, and brought it down with a clean, lethal swing. The blob divided in two. Mandy turned to the others, expecting the blob-halves to lie still or perhaps seep harmlessly into the floor. They did neither. Instead, they each grew into their own full-sized blob, and made shaky gurgling noises that couldn't have been anything but laughter. Worse, all the other blobs were now after her.

She growled at them. The scythe did more than slice. She raised it high and fired a fiery blast at the blobs. Perhaps they'd boil to death-

The blast deflected off their slimy skins. Mandy leapt nimbly aside, trying to think. They hadn't divided again, but they were obviously outraged. What _did _hurt them?

She quickly thought back to the one she'd spoken to- the poor, murky, disgusting creature. She grimaced. The thing was probably dead already from alcohol poisoning.

Poisoning.

She cut a neat, tiny slice in one of them. It whined at her and oozed as fast as it could towards her. She raised the scythe again and fired an acidic blast into the slice she'd given it. The thing grew murky, and began to make strange, weeping noises. It oozed off-course, rolled about, became sticky and bad-smelling. Mandy made quick work of the other ones. It was almost sad, the way they didn't stand a chance against her. She gave a mental shrug. That was the way the cookie crumbled. Save Billy. Kill a few other sentient beings. He was worth it, she thought simply.

She cautiously quartered them with the scythe. It really is a nice little toy, she thought, the wooden handle welcome in her hands. The eyeballs had a hardened, brittle exterior. Mandy shattered them.

A few coins dropped out of each eye. She stooped quickly and picked them up. Mandy had absolutely no idea how much they were worth. She tried not to betray her ignorance as she walked back up to the bar.

"Welcome back, honey!" roared the little man. "How about them drinks? What suits yer fancy?"

Mandy gave a glance at the neon menu hanging on the wall. She didn't know what any of them were. All of them sounded unpleasant. "I'll have a frenzied sharksplice," she said calmly, as if she's spent every day of her life ordering from Underworld restaurants, "with extra under-venom."

The bartender whistled through his pointed teeth. "Ah," he cried, "a risk-taker!"

Mandy's stomach churned. She didn't like the sound of that. And it frustrated her, how she could do nothing to the annoying little man but glare at him from the other side of the counter. He came back with her drink in an enormous glass goblet.

Mandy raised the glass to her lips, trying not to drink very much, trying to look dainty rather than afraid. The liquid slid down her throat and dizzied her slightly. "Right," she said coldly. "My questions."

"Question," corrected the bartender blissfully. "A drink a question, m'dear."

"Fine," Mandy snapped. "Have you seen a human boy, about this tall, neon orange hair, enormous nose?"

The bartender scratched his pimply chin. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Wellll," he replied, obnoxiously slowly. "Yeah, come to think of it. Yeah, I did. Young man was prancing around, sniffing other monsters' drinks up that gargantuan nose of his and giggling stupidly. I think he was already drunk, though."

"No, he's always like that," Mandy said, weak with relief.

"Do have a drink, darlin'."

Comforted, Mandy absently tilted the goblet and took a giant swig. A few moments later she realized she probably shouldn't have- her eyes watered and she leaned up against the counter, woozy. "Tell me where he went," she demanded with some difficulty.

"Uh-uh! You haven't finished your drink, and you need to buy another one before I answer you again. So drink up, honey."

The scythe vibrated in her grip, reminding her. Tempting her. "Enough," she said, voice cold and crisp once again. She jumped nimbly atop the counter and pressed the blade against the man's dry white skin. "I told you to tell me where he went. If you know what's good for you, you _will_ tell me."

The man gave his unpleasant laugh. "Put yer little knife down, angel."

Angel? Mandy was tempted to slice his head off then and there. She pushed it in gently enough to cut through his skin. "_Tell_," she said, raising her voice slightly.

The bartender raised his arms up in mock surrender. "Oh, I give in. How very clever of you."

Mandy almost lost her cool. Her face flushed a bit under her hood. She was glad he couldn't see her face. "Shut the hell up and tell me where he went," she demanded, voice dangerously quiet. The coldness made even the bartender's smile disappear.

He squirmed slightly. "You won't kill me," he said, voice desperately shrill.

"And why not?" Mandy deadpanned. "There are thousands more who have seen my idiot cavorting about. You aren't worth anything to me."

"Ooh, _your_ idiot? Do you love him?" jeered the bartender nervously.

Mandy inhaled sharply. An image of Billy laughing appeared in her mind. Only yesterday she'd spent hours at his house, slapping his face and watching his unbelievably stupid antics. He was trying to get her to climb onto his roof. He was babbling on about the time he'd blown his cat up. He was giggling again. He was smiling sweetly at her.

He was holding her hand when she wanted to hurt him.

She snapped back to reality as the smooth wooden handle of the scythe was jerked from her grasp. She grunted and fell into the business side of the bar. The world pirouetted insanely as she was shoved to the ground, the blade of the scythe held at her throat by the demonic little man. "I'll take that as a 'yes'!" he screeched, and began to cackle, head tilted back evilly.

"Be careful," Mandy said in a total monotone. The man stopped cackling. Somehow, he'd heard her. Mandy wasn't surprised. People heard her when she wanted them to, no matter how loud she was. "I hate you more than you could ever imagine, now, little man. That's _not_ something you want directed at you."

The man frowned at her. There was no doubt about it, now- he looked afraid.

"Go ahead. Kill me. Whatever dimension I end up in, alive or dead, I'll hunt you down. And eventually... _you. Will. Suffer_."

The man raised the scythe away from her. "Forgive me," he whimpered in his high-pitched voice.

Mandy stood, brushed herself off, and snatched the scythe away. "No," she said coldly.

She gave the scythe a little twirl. The man's face registered surprise.

Then his head slid off.

-GABM-

Mandy sat atop a turquoise hill, letting the slight breeze lift her bangs from her face. The bartender's blood had dried purple on the scythe's blade. Mandy had decided to let the blood of her victims dry on the blade, and show it to Grim later, to prove to him how bad he was at his job.

She tucked her knees under her new robe. Blood had gotten on that, too, but it didn't show.

The scenery was beautiful, in an eerie, demented way. The sky was black, with puffy, faintly green cloud formations. There were several rolling light blue hills, the tallest of which Mandy was now sitting atop. When she turned her head, she could see a twisted black forest to the right, where a bunch of ugly, undead creatures were loping about.

She put her head on her knees. She'd been walking about for hours, traveling from dimension to dimension, with no sign of Billy. Since the bartender, no one had even _seen _him. She glared at the strange horizon. She _would_ find him. Since when had Mandy failed at- well, anything? She had to admit, though, she wished Grim was there to act as a guide. Grim would have had money on him at the bar. Grim would know what dimension to search in. Grim would probably have been able to negotiate with the bartender without killing him.

Ah, but there was Grim's problem, Mandy thought. He didn't _want_ to kill people while negotiating. Yet- just maybe- threats weren't the best strategy, either. Killing someone generally didn't encourage them to spill their info.

Mandy needed to find someplace to sleep. She stood, stretched, and opened another interdimensional portal. And- who knew?- maybe Billy would be in this one.

She glared into the portal. That boy would get the worst beating of his life once she found him.

If _you find him, that is._

Mandy scowled and stepped gracefully into the portal.


	5. Of Gorla & Dummies In Distress

**AN: **Alright, here's another chapter. The story's going off on an adventurous streak for a bit. However, because of this, I can add such goodies to a chapter as tongue piercings, hotel rooms, and naked Billy! And of course, plenty of romance in between ;-) Enjoy.

_Thud_.

Mandy found herself sprawled in the middle of what appeared to be a lounge. Strange, hideous beings akin to the ones in the bar were roaming aimlessly about. Some of them were dressed in deep purple silks and suave suits. None of them paid any attention to Mandy. Peering angrily at her surroundings, she stood up and began to search for an employee, or someone who looked professional enough to tell her how to rent a room. Mandy frowned. She had all of her coins left, but they probably weren't enough for a night at the hotel.

First thing's first, she thought. Look for Billy.

Mandy scanned her surroundings mechanically. She didn't get her hopes up. He probably wasn't-

There.

She sprinted over to a dark, cobwebby corner. The sign nailed haphazardly to the wall read, "M. Gorla, soothsayer." Mandy ignored it and looked beneath it.

"Mandy?" Billy said, a smile forming dopily on his face. He tried to walk towards his friend, but tripped and fell flat on his face. He got up again slowly and looked at her, still smiling blankly, his eyes slightly out of focus.

Mandy walked over to him until he was close enough to give her a weak, warm hug. He held her for a few moments before Mandy forced herself to move away. "Yes, Billy, I'm here. Get over it. What have they done to you?"

"He has been drugged and chained here," a thickly accented voice answered. Out of the shadows stepped a woman that could only have been M. Gorla, soothsayer, and she was grinning widely at Mandy.

Each and every one of her teeth tapered to a sharp point.

"Hold it right there," Mandy said suspiciously. "Something's not right. Billy doesn't need dope. How did you find this young man?"

Gorla rolled her eyes to the ceiling and clicked something against her teeth. Mandy looked a bit closer- the creature had several tongue piercings. When she looked back at Mandy, several other piercings- all earrings, thank goodness- glinted in the hotel's low lighting. "He was delivered to me by my brother, Arlog, the bartender."

"Oh," Mandy said. "I thought there was a resemblance."

The soothsayer's grin widened. "You know him?"

"I killed him," Mandy said coldly.

"Ah." Gorla frowned for a moment, but her grin was back in no time. "How very sad for Arlog. Killed by a pretty adolescent human girl."

"If you're trying to flatter me," Mandy replied, leveling the scythe at Gorla's half-exposed bosom, "you're wasting your time."

"Is love a waste of time?" replied Gorla innocently, clicking one of her barbells against her teeth.

"Yes," Mandy replied assuredly. On the inside, however, she wasn't half as certain. Billy was slouched in the corner, absolutely out-of-it, and Mandy felt some measure of concern for him. "You're terrible at changing subjects, by the way."

"Who's changing the subject? We were discussing my brother- recently deceased, it seems- and my love for him." Gorla's grin increased to the point where it made her look insane.

"I don't care," Mandy said bluntly.

"Is my brother a _sore_ subject for you, little girl?" asked Gorla in a whiny, caustic voice. She pinched Mandy's cheek. "Did that big bad meanie try to take advantage of you?"

Mandy reached out and slapped Gorla across the face.

The soothsayer continued to grin. "Forgive my brother and I. When it comes to matters of the flesh, we're simply _insatiable_."

Mandy felt cold. "What's Billy doing here?" she said quietly. The amount of sheer venom she could put into her voice, quiet as it was, was incredible.

Gorla stopped grinning. Her eyes continued to glow madly. "Watch your tone, you little bitch."

"Watch your head, you old bag."

_Shhhhing_! 

-GABM-

Mandy strode into her rented room. Billy trailed behind her, looking slightly upset but very out of focus. "Mandy, I don' ge' it what're we doin'," he mumbled, before collapsing onto the bed.

Mandy sat next to him. She hesitated. He probably wouldn't remember any of this when he woke up tomorrow. Slowly, gingerly, she removed his hat and ran her fingers through his orange hair. Filthy. He was filthy.

"Ew," she mumbled. Then, aloud- "What have you been through, Billy?"

Billy remained silent. Mandy turned, to see if he'd fallen asleep- he wasn't asleep, but was staring at the ceiling blankly. Unusual.

Mandy had no idea what to do. She had a good idea of what had happened, and the offending party had already been punished, but how was she to deal with the aftermath? She had no idea how to comfort.

She only knew how to hurt.

She took Billy's hand and clasped it in her own- that, she remembered, had calmed her down significantly... yesterday. Was it only yesterday? "Get up," she said to him, more sharply than she needed to.

Billy obeyed silently. Mandy gave a shuddering sigh. She decided she _hated _him like this. He was certainly not annoying; no, quite the opposite.

But _Billy_ was her friend. This just wasn't Billy.

"Quit your moping," she said to him. "Say something stupid."

"Inner tubes're real disgusting," Billy said faintly.

"That's better... I guess," Mandy said, sounding apathetic.

Mandy pulled Grim's bloody robe off. "Billy," she said, "I need rest and require you to be silent."

No reply.

She glared into the waiting bedspread.

-GABM-

Falling asleep had been easy enough. _Staying_ asleep was much more difficult, because while Mandy stayed in one luxuriously warm bed, Billy was in the other luxuriously warm bed, shouting his stupid head off.

Mandy opened one scowling, bloodshot eye. She threw the covers off and walked over to Billy's bedside. He was fast asleep, and looking dreadfully worried about something.

"Hey, Billy," Mandy said, shaking him awake. "Shut it. I need some rest."

Billy snapped awake immediately and sat up. He still looked troubled, but- to Mandy's relief- his eyes were in focus and he didn't look any dumber than he usually was. "Mandy!" he cried energetically. He leapt from his bed and tackled her. She fell to the floor with a disgusted _oof_! "Boy, I'm so happy you're here! I haven't seen you in ages and _aaaaaages_, and there was this ugly lady with metal in her tongue who-"

"Shut up about her," Mandy said coldly. "I killed her."

"You did? _Neat_! I just had myself a scary nightmare, I mean, it was fine when I started out 'cause I was eating Peruvian tar cakes, but then the clowns came and..." Billy shuddered and held on to Mandy, surprising her. "Can I sleep with you?" he blurted out suddenly.

"No," Mandy replied flatly.

"C'mon Mandy! I won't touch you or nothin', I swears it. And if I start goin' all nightmare-face again, you can wake me up RIGHT AWAY! -Faster than a teething ninja! Wa-_chow_-a!" Billy squinted his eyes and struck his best ninja pose. A moment later, he relaxed, giving his best puppy-dog impression to Mandy. "_Pleeeease_? Huh, huh, huh?"

"I said 'no'," Mandy replied, her voice raising slightly.

Mandy drew back her fist and punched Billy's nose off. A new one promptly grew back in its place. Billy tweaked it and giggled. "Yer lotsa fun, Mandy."

Mandy ignored his comment. Sure, she was glad to have him back, but that didn't make him any less annoying. Or any less stupid. "Get back to bed, nincompoop."

"Deeheehee," Billy laughed. "'Poop.'" He stepped towards his bed, but stopped abruptly. "Uh, Mandy?"

"What?" she snapped.

"My bed sheets are kinda... _wet_." Billy flushed and scratched the back of his neck. "As in, 'I-had-a-real-bad-dream-just-now' wet."

"_Fffine_!" Mandy spat. "I give up. You're impossible to cope with. Billy- take a short shower. Then you can sleep in my bed, I guess."

"Yahooo!" Billy whooped and tried to throw his hat up into the air. Since he wasn't wearing it, he ended up ripping out a chunk of his hair and throwing that up into the air instead, and then howling in pain.

He felt a cool, slender hand cover his mouth. "Quiet," Mandy said sharply. She let go of him- his eyes were watering, but he was smiling at her.

Mandy turned away so she couldn't see him. "Go take that shower. Oh- and don't put your clothes back on. They're probably soaked with Billypee, too." She folded her arms and waited for his footsteps to tell her he'd gone.

Mandy started to blush light pink.

-GABM-

"Come out, Billy," Mandy said, exasperated.

"But I'm naked!" Billy shouted in response, his voice muffled behind the oaken door. "There's not even a fig leaf this time neither, nuh-uh!"

Since when does Billy care about this sort of thing? Mandy thought angrily.

"Come on," she growled to the door. "I'll be far more humiliated from this than you'll ever be in your entire life, so quit being a baby and get out of there."

"I'm no baby!" Billy cried, flinging open the door.

Mandy got a glimpse more of him than she would have liked. "No," she replied sardonically, "you're certainly not."

-GABM-

Mandy clung to the far edge of the bed, trying to keep herself as far away from naked Billy as possible. Billy hummed a happy tune, wide awake from his hot shower.

"Quit that," Mandy said, death ringing in her voice. "It's getting on my nerves."

"I can't helps it! Being naked makes me all contenteded inside like the time I ate strawburries filled with Pop Rocks! Then my nose blew up. _Deeheeheeheehee_!"

Mandy gave a feral growl. "Remember what happened the last time you upset me, Billy?"

"Uh, you apologized?" Billy replied perkily. Mandy gave him a sharp glance. He was grinning sweetly at her. Mandy felt her heart soften the tiniest bit, and tried to harden it again- he didn't intend it as a comeback at all. He was just being honest.

"That's over with," Mandy replied finally, looking away.

"Oh. Butcha still mean it, right?" Billy blurted.

"I... do," Mandy said. The strange feeling inside her now didn't come very often- although she recognized it immediately. Hesitation. She was on unsure ground. Lying to oneself was pathetic, but being so abnormally fond of someone was equally as pathetic- and here was _Billy_, the root cause of everything, watching her as she struggled to find a solution. "I..." Mandy left her words to dangle in the air.

Come on. You're smarter than this.

Mandy gave a small shrug. I have feelings for him, she thought, and I'll leave it at that.

Billy had stopped humming. Mandy closed her eyes and fell into an exhausted slumber.

-GABM-

When she awoke, it was slowly and calmly, and completely relaxing. She didn't feel as if she were about to fall off the bed anymore, and she was deliciously warm. Mandy nestled deeper into the covers, not wanting to become completely conscious, trying to delay fully awakening for as long as she could.

"Hey-a! Yer wakin' up!"

Mandy groaned. Her eyes snapped open. "Why the f-"

"SHH. You can go back to sleep. I was just making an in-tell-ell-i-ell-tent-ell-i-gent statement." Billy gave his famous chortle and hugged her.

Wait a minute, Mandy thought, shocked.

She sprung out of bed as fast as she could, glaring horribly at him. Billy was looking saddened and confused by her sudden disappearance from his arms. "_You_," she said to him coldly, "_have _no right _to touch me. Am I clear?_"

Billy hid his face beneath the covers. "I'm sorry, Mandy." To Mandy's surprise, he really _did_ sound sorry. Actually, he sounded miserable about what he'd done, and more than a little lost. Mandy winced. He really didn't need to beat himself up over it.

She reached out and cautiously patted the top of his blanket-clad head. "There, there," she said reluctantly. "Quit your whining."

"Does this mean you forgive me?" Billy exclaimed eagerly.

"No," snapped Mandy. "Here, wear Grim's robe to hide that hideous orange pubic hair. No, Billy, don't give me that look. I think it's fair to say we're both embarrassed enough about this to never speak of it again."

Billy gave a sheepish salute. Mandy handed him the robe and shielded her eyes; she'd seen Billy naked more times than she'd like to count.

"Okee-dokee! Let's go home," Billy blathered, reaching for the scythe.

"Don't you dare," Mandy warned him.

_Shhhing_! A wide, distinctly idiot-looking portal opened up, and Billy laughed and dove into it. Mandy pinched the area between her eyes. Joy, she thought, I guess I have to go after him again. She stepped into the portal behind her friend, growling in frustration. 

Not like there was anything better to do at home. Mandy scowled as she hurtled through time and space. What would her life be like if she simply never returned? Billy and her could find a place in the Underworld, she supposed, and the trouble they could get into would be far more interesting than the stupid little adventures of the regular world. As long as Mandy was there, no one would give them any real trouble. Maybe-

"Ouch! Hey M_aa_-a-andy!"

Mandy had been spit out into a dark, monstrous city. Luckily enough, the portal had led her to exactly the same place as Billy- _exactly. _She was thrown into him, knocking him over, and they rolled ridiculously down a hill, a jumble of arms and legs that seemed to be chuckling foolishly. Once at the bottom, Mandy got up as quickly as possible.

Billy didn't. "Lookit me, Mandy! I'm making a wet-cement angel!" _Squish, squish_.

Mandy winced. "Get up, Billy. We have to get home."

"Nahhh," Billy replied blithely. "We don't gots to. We can stay here as long as we want! _Fo-eva_!"

"You'll be staying there forever whether you like it or not, Billy, if you don't get up."

"Aw, fine."

Billy detached himself from the sticky sidewalk and tried to brush the cement off of his robe. He wound up getting a whole lot of hardening grey cement on his fingers. When that failed and his fingers became coated with cement, he tried licking them off- to no avail. The substance didn't quite slide down his throat. Billy hurriedly tried to chew it- maybe then it would go down- and he felt the little grains crunch between his teeth. "_Pleh_! This stuff tastes like broiled emu!"

Mandy watched him. "Okay," she said, "I've had enough of your stupidness for now."

Mandy took the scythe from Billy and leveled it at his fortified robe. A bubbly, soapy blast shot out and melted away the cement from his back, his sleeves, and even his mouth. "Thbbanfgbanbks," Billy gurgled.

"Don't mention it."


	6. Coming Home

**AN:** Aha! Another speedy update. However, after this, I'm forcing myself to take the updates s l o w l y. Honestly, people, I really think you'll be more interested in what you're reading if I post, say, a chapter every few days rather than 2 chapters a day. Keep you waiting. Keep you in suspense. Keep you horny by abstaining, if you want to look at it that way. And- this chapter veers off the 'adventure' aspect completely. I've decided I need room for romance, character building, and sex jokes instead. Ta!

"Can't you walk any faster?" Mandy grumbled. Billy was still limping a bit.

Billy paid no attention to her words. The two were roaming aimlessly around a cheerfully twisted world. The grass was perfect and green, the sky was bright blue, the flowers were all in bloom, and pinkish bubbles floated by. Mandy didn't know where they were, but judging by the rainbows-and-butterflies atmosphere, it probably had something to do with Billy conjuring the portal. "Where're we goin' again...?"

The blonde threw up her hands. "I don't know!" she burst out. "You're the one that wants to be here, and if you don't shut up, it's right back to the real world we go." Billy sagged a little bit, pouting at her. She ignored him. "Oh, and by the way, Billy? There's a speck of cement on your left eyebrow. I expect you to find some way to remove it before we continue."

Billy stopped at a pure little puddle to examine his reflection. "I don't see nothin'."

"Well, look harder, and be snappy." Mandy moved in next to Billy and looked at her own image in the water. Somehow, she'd lost her hairband, and she reached up and tried to smooth her hair back into its usual shape. Billy was busy making daft faces at himself.

Mandy let her hands fall back to her sides. No one here cared how she looked.

Her eyes slid over to Billy's reflection. He came across as incredibly stupid- as he really was- and every so often, he'd stop making faces and just laugh at nothing in particular. Mandy could hardly believe this was the same boy who held her, who rocked her a couple of days ago. Were all dim-witted creatures so very gentle?

In some ways, Mandy hated to admit, he was smarter than her. No, not smarter- just, some things came naturally to him. Like sweetness. Like enjoying things without holding back. For example, right now he was having a much happier time than she was. I'd rather be angry and smart, Mandy told herself, than cheery and idiotic. She was content with her life.

Wasn't she? There was something annoying at the back of her mind, nagging at her thoughts lately. It was something that would have made her anxious, if she weren't Mandy, but what was it?

"I'm justa slice of pineapple pie, I'm justa slice of pineapple pie," Billy sang out, bringing Mandy back to earth. The redhead smiled and flopped down on his back. "Hey, this grass is all cushy! Wanna lay down, Mandy?" He tilted his head back a bit and crossed his legs comfortably. "Pineapple pie, pineapple pie, serve it to me 'til I barf and I cry! Oooooo, I'm justa slice of pineapple piiiiiii-eeeee... IT'S ALL I WILL EAT 'TIL THE DAY THAT I DIE! _Deehee_! Like my song, Mandy?"

"Nope," Mandy replied. "Pineapples are gross."

"Hey!" Billy sat up, indignant. "You can't just go ahead and insult pineapples as if you were any old granny!"

"Pineapples are gross," Mandy repeated carelessly.

It happened in a flash. Billy launched himself at his friend, sending them both rolling once again. Mandy felt her back connect with the ground, the breath knocked from her lungs, as he pinned her down. She struggled and glared. Billy glared in return. "Take it back," he cried out.

"No," Mandy snapped. She tried to shove him off of her, and succeeded in rolling him over- now _he_ was the one being pinned down. "It's just a bunch of stupid pineapples. I don't know why you care so much!"

Billy scowled. The expression looked odd on his normally happy face. "Because I _loveses_ pineapples."

"Love is a waste of time," Mandy proclaimed distractedly. Again, she found herself uttering something she suspected was a lie.

Billy managed to throw her off of him, keeping a firm grip on her shoulders, and, this time, neither gained the upper hand. They simply rolled around on the happy springy grass, growling at each other, each as stubborn as the other. They wrestled in this manner for a good ten minutes before Mandy felt her muscles beginning to give out. Cursing her body, she tried and tried to shove him under- she needed to teach him a lesson, and to prove her point to him as well. Billy continued to glare at her, singing the Pineapple Song through clenched teeth. He showed no signs of giving in. Mandy desperately struggled. It was no use. Adolescence made her feminine... feeble. She used one last spurt of strength to try and shove him away- which certainly did not happen. He pinned her to the ground, victorious.

She stared at him. Now, child that he was, he'd begin to rub it in her face. Nyah, nyah, and she had to tell him that she liked pineapples. Mandy winced.

Billy did no such thing.

He simply leaned over her, panting, watching her through half-lidded eyes. Mandy felt her heart rate accelerate, although she'd stopped moving. "Hey. Dummy. You win."

"Yeah," Billy said. He got up, immediately collapsing again right next to her, and wiggled his shoulder so that Mandy's head rested on it.

"Get away from me," Mandy said icily. She was too tired to move away herself.

"No!" Billy exclaimed. He sounded slightly nervous and perturbed- as if he had something that he didn't want taken from him.

He brushed a stray piece of Mandy's hair back behind her ear. The tenderness of the gesture caught her off-guard, but she said nothing- she only laid there, stiffly. "Alright. You have exactly thirty seconds to do what you want. Then I'm going to get back up and knock the stuffing out of you, the old-fashioned way."

"What way?"

"_My_ way."

"O-oh! How much seconds do I gots left?"

"Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen..."

Billy turned and gave Mandy a small, gentle kiss on the forehead.

-GABM-

"Why-a we goin' home?" Billy managed to spit out through several broken and missing teeth. A makeshift bandage covered his nose. His left eye was covered with an enormous, purple bruise.

Mandy had been true to her word.

"One, because I said so," Mandy said, running her finger over the razor-sharp blade of the scythe, "two, do you really think we could spend the rest of our lives in this horrible flowery place? I have to return this to Grim, too- he has a job to do, no matter how badly he sucks at it, and a world without death is much, much, much, much, much, much worse than a world with it. Plus I want to find out what he thought of my creative venture."

"Crrrr-et-a-tive adventures?" Billy said, screwing his beaten face up in thought. Mandy nodded at him, looking somewhat wry.

Mandy raised the scythe up, bringing it down in front of herself and her friend with a familiar ringing noise, opening another swirling green portal. Billy's face glowed green as he looked at her. "Uh, Mandy? What happens if you accidentally teleport us back to Gorla's-"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Billy, that I killed her?" Mandy caught a glimpse of his face. He looked very worried. Lost. Mandy's voice lost some of its edge. "Nothing like that's going to happen again," she promised.

"I don't wanna be separated..." Billy said. His eyes flicked towards the portal for an instant.

"That won't happen, either. Honestly, Billy, _Grim's _the one who keeps losing you- not me."

Billy stepped closer and held her hand. Mandy's eyes widened, surprised, but she let him be. If it helped him get home, so be it. "You let go as soon as we arrive," Mandy warned him.

Billy grinned. "Yep!"

She led him into the portal calmly, as if she were leading him to his class, or leading him to his hotel room, or leading him away from Sperg. Window after window flashed by their eyes as they hurtled through various dimensions, being dropped off at none. Outlandish scenes whirled around them wildly. Billy chortled moronically amongst all the madness. "I pity you," Mandy told him. Billy's only response was to giggle again and give her hand a squeeze.

The portal spewed them out ungratefully.

Mandy, dizzied, barely managed to land on her feet. The carpet was squishy, familiar- and pink. Billy was still holding on to her, and she jerked her hand away, disgusted. "Here we are, stupid," Mandy said. Her voice, which was completely monotone, hid her relief at getting back safely.

"Wow, Mandy! We're in your _bedroom_!"

Mandy raised an eyebrow and slapped him- albeit gently. "Calm down, freak."

She turned sharply as she felt the scythe being snatched away. "I t'ink I'll be takin' dat," Grim snapped. He sighed and looked at the scythe as a lover would. "Welcome back, Jodie," he said to it gleefully. "Blast, but I've missed ya, girl!"

"Get a room," Mandy said brusquely.

"Well," Grim said bitterly to her, "you seem to be fine as well. How's your little sweetheart?"

"I'm fine!" Billy piped up with a giggle. "Boy, we had fun. This guy with pointy teeth brought me to this lady with pointy teeth, who..." Billy's face fell momentarily.

"Who I rescued you from," Mandy deadpanned. "Go on."

"Yeah! And then I slept naked in a bed with Mandy, and then we laid by this puddle and she told me I could do whatever I wanted to her for _thirty seconds_! Then she beat the crap out of me. It was _great_!"

Grim gave a whoop of laughter. "I _knew_ it!"

"Knew what?" Billy asked blissfully.

"Get out of here, Grim," Mandy said. Her voice, which should have been boiling with hatred, was calm and quiet. Not that that did much to console Grim. He slowly backed away, stepping out the door, telling himself there was no reason whatsoever to be afraid for his well-being. Grim gulped nervously. "Oh- eh-" he poked his head back inside gingerly. "Can I have my robe back?"

"Sho' thing!" Billy yelled, whipping Grim's outfit off and standing exposed next to Mandy.

Mandy coughed and turned away.

"Thanks a lot," Grim said dully. He snatched his robe, pulled it over his head, and slammed the door behind him.

Billy turned to his best friend. "Geez, what's his beef?" Billy complained.

-GABM-

"Son," Harold said gravely, "I think what we have here is a serious problem." He reached into a nearby cookie jar, pulled up a congealed wad of cotton candy, and stuffed it down his throat. His lecture was interrupted by a long, loud belch. Harold's face melted into a foolish smile, and remained so for a good five minutes.

"Aren't you going to tell him off, dear?" Gladys replied nervously.

Phone calls had been sent to both Billy's and Mandy's parents- they, for obvious reasons, had not been in school for the past two days. Mandy's parents were too afraid to fight, or to discipline her in any way. Billy's, on the other hand...

Harold scratched his back, little pieces of cotton candy sticking around his mouth. "Saywha?" he said quickly.

"Skipping, Harold, our son was skipping school," Billy's mom supplied. "You were going to tell him what a destructive decision that is, dear. Weren't you? Dear?"

Harold was staring at her, his expression completely empty, a strand of drool dripping from his lazy mouth. At her last word he seemed to perk up a bit. "Oh, yeah," he said, putting on his best righteously parental glare. "Bad Billy."

Billy smiled, not paying attention to anything his parents were saying, tongue sticking playfully out the left side of his mouth.

"Skipping is a very bad thing, son. Socially. Scholastically. Religiously. Economically. Accidentally. D_uhhhm_... grammatically. And archaeologically. Why I remember one time when I skipped out of class so I could spend some a-_lone_ time with your mother in the janitor's closet."

"Did it lead to good things?" Billy asked. His father was beginning to snag his interest.

Harold scratched his head. "Gladys," he whispered loudly to his wife, "I forget. Is Billy a good thing?"

Gladys's eye twitched. "Why don't you just skip to the moral of the story for now, dear?"

"Right," Harold answered seriously. "The moral is, no one can eat serpentine without having tummy troubles. As punishment, you have to sweep your room."

"But Billy's room has a carpet covering the entire floor," Mandy piped up for the first time. The family looked at her, surprised. She glared back.

"It does?" Harold said, genuinely surprised. "Well, I guess I need to give Billy his special broom."

He whipped out a short, purple-coated broom with "Billy" carved in disjoined letters on the side. Harold sniffed at it deeply. His face ticked twice. "Yep," he said, "I can still smell the massage oil."

"Give me that," Mandy snapped. She snatched it away, and, to her disgust, the broom was covered with a sticky, slimy substance. "What the heck is on this handle?" she demanded. "It's _gross_."

Billy gave a sheepish giggle and began to lead Mandy by the wrist up to his room. "It just needs to be polished a little bit, I guess," he said humbly. "You can, if you wanna. There's lemon polish up in my dresser. I put it up there a few years ago for a bedtime snack, _mmhmm_."

"Aw, isn't that sweet, babe?" Harold said to Gladys, wrapping his arm around her. "He's already got her doing all the domestic work. Hey Mandy!" he called out to her. Gladys instinctively shrunk back.

"What?" Mandy replied coolly.

"Have fun polishing Billy's handle!"


	7. Of Finding The Right Words

**AN:** Tomorrow I'm going to catch a flight to California, where I'll stay in a dorm until the ninth of July, so don't expect any updates until then :( . Yeah, I'm P.O'ed too. There's no computer AND no television, meaning, tragically for me, that I'm going to miss the premiere of Wrath of the Spider Queen, and, tragically for all of you, that you'll have to wait ages and ages for Chapter 8. Sorry 'bout that. Make up for it by enjoying this chapter like a bat enjoys chicken (that is, enjoy it a lot). :) Until next time...

Billy giggled, sitting on his bed and wiggling from the sheer amount of happiness inside him. Mandy, who had refused to sit by his side, was situated Indian-style across from him. Billy glanced at her and giggled again. Mandy's face colored pink as she checked her skirt- her panties weren't visible, but really, who knew what kind of things Billy would look at without letting her know?

"Quiet," Mandy said sharply. "You have no reason to be so vocal about your happiness." Did he?

Billy stopped his obnoxious chuckling, sliding down off his bed so that he was sitting on the floor as well. "Sorry!" He tried and failed miserably to restrain a wide, overjoyed grin. Billy reached out and ran one finger over Mandy's black hairband.

"Except for the fact that you're stupid."

Smack!

Mandy viciously beat Billy's arm back away from her face. She watched him suspiciously, lest he try to touch her again; by this time, however, even Billy had gotten the point. "Touching equals pain, Billy. Process that fact carefully." Mandy's thoughts drifted back to him holding her hand. To him holding her while she slept... without her consent. She scowled in his face.

Billy stared back at her. His eyes, as they had been so often lately, were eager and full of delight. He was looking at her as if he simply couldn't _wait_ for what she'd do next.

Her own eyes must have gone slightly out of focus while she pondered him, because the next thing he said was, "Whatcha lookin' at?"

"An imbecile," Mandy replied sharply.

"A windowsill?"

"An imbecile."

"A free refill?"

"An imbecile."

"Jack n' Jill?"

"An imbecile."

"A BEACH?!"

Mandy slapped his face, hard, and refused to reply. "Heehee," Billy said quietly, almost to himself. "Hey, want me to read your plams?"

"It's _palms_," Mandy corrected him icily, "and no."

"Great," Billy replied gleefully. He seized her arm and brought her palm up to his face, mere inches from his eyes, and squinted at it intensely. "Hmm. HMMMM. Well it says here that your soda line's getting softer, which could mean more babes by the wayside, mmhmm, and right here it wants to make me pork! Hey-a, Mandy, that reminds me... are there one or two P's in the word exciting?"

"Give me that," Mandy snapped. She jerked her hand away. "You can't read palms, you idiot."

Billy blushed, giving a guilty chortle, and leaned his head on his fist. "Yeps. I can't."

Mandy was tempted to get up and leave, while something inside her was telling her to stay. Stay.

Mandy got up and left.

Her innards had been right.

When she got home, she regretted having left.

-GABM-

Mandy switched through channel after channel. Where was the violence? Where were the horror movies? She flipped to the Sangre Station- it was in tune with her personality, most of the time- and saw that they were doing a special on tongue piercings.

Mandy wrenched the television's power plug out.

It was a shame you could only kill someone once. She stretched and forced herself to calm down- not calm meant not in control, and not in control just wasn't Mandy. It's better to safeguard yourself with iron discipline, Mandy thought, even if it means you didn't get to go on some sort of violent rampage.

Even if it means you walk away from a situation that's become the reason you live the life you do?

Mandy stared at the blank TV screen. Billy. The world is about what I want, Mandy reasoned quickly, and I'd rather spend time with Billy than sit on my butt watching garbage on television.

She picked up the phone. Her fingers punched in the numbers aggressively- automatically.

"Hello," a voice said smoothly on the other end, "you've reached the temple of slow redhead-play, High Priest Harold speaking. What can I do ya for?"

"Put Billy on the line."

There was a long, awkward pause.

"Oh," the voice said finally, "_you're_ not-"

"If you knew what was good for you, Billy's dad, you'd put Billy on. Immediately."

"I'm on!" Billy's voice rang from the receiver at once. "D'aww, why'd you leave like that, Mandy?"

"Dance. Tonight. Hammy's Hotel. Seven. Be there." _Click_.

Mandy glanced at the clock. She folded her arms behind her head, relaxing slightly; she had just over two hours. Not that she planned on doing anything besides brushing her hair. Dances had never interested her. Maybe, just maybe, using Billy to her advantage, she would be able to thoroughly ruin the event. _That_ interested her a bit more.

Mandy stretched out on her couch. Glancing at the clock, she shut her eyes, dozing off for a few minutes before the dance came around.

-GABM-

When she arrived, the place was loud, garish, crowded with people. Mandy scanned the crowd for that familiar face, and listened for that idiotic giggle. Billy was never hard to miss.

"Hello Man-dy," sneered a familiar voice. Mindy was leaning up against a punch table, wearing a smirk that made her look unattractive, a dress that made her look wenchy, and heels that made her quite a bit taller than Mandy was. "I see you've dressed up for the occasion!"

Mandy was wearing her usual pink dress. "I see you've dressed down for it," she said, unruffled.

"Oooh! Loser insults. I'm _so_ embarrassed." Mindy gave a loud, unpleasant laugh. "What kind of boy is going to ask _you_ to dance, I wonder?"

Mandy said nothing. She reached for a glass of punch.

"_Billy_?" jeered Mindy. "He's right over there. He said he was meeting you here, but I guess he isn't very interested, is he?" Mindy pointed rudely over to a clump of girls in the corner. Mandy turned to look at them, and something wet splashed on her shoulder. -Mindy had thrown a paper cup full of punch at her, and Mandy felt herself go red as the punch began to stain her dress, some dripping down her arm in a sticky wet trail.

"You shouldn't have done that," Mandy said in a low voice. She unclenched her fists, surprisingly enough, turned her back on Mindy, and began to walk towards the group of silly girls.

"Ooh! I'm so scared!" Mindy called to her retreating back. Her words were followed by another bout of unpleasant laughter.

Mandy felt anger burn inside of her, but did not turn around. She'd deal with Mindy soon enough. For now, Billy was probably getting himself into some kind of trouble, and Mandy would be needed to pull him out. She only hoped he was where Mindy had said- the lot behind Hammy's Hotel was enormous, and right now it was crammed with people.

A few of the girls, all dressed in outrageously racy outfits, turned to look at Mandy. Disinterested, they looked back at whatever they had been a few minutes before. She managed to worm her way into the half-circle. Sitting in a corner, with a curly-haired girl on his lap and a cute, petite young woman clinging to his side, was Billy. Mandy felt her heart sink slightly. She counteracted this by enveloping it in more and more layers of stone. "Billy." She didn't know what else to say to him.

"Mandy!" he cried, overjoyed. He easily tossed the girls away and ran up to Mandy. "I been waiting for you." Smiling happily, Billy gave her a brief, heartfelt hug. "Hey, you gots something sticky on yer shoulder! _Deeheehee_." He picked her up by the waist and spun her around once, setting her back down on the ground.

Mandy felt dizzy- more dizzy than she should have, considering she'd only been spun once. "It's punch," she said to him, trying to give her voice its habitual edge. The girls in the group were looking at Mandy with something between jealously and respect.

"Hey, girls," Billy said to all of them, "this is my bestest bestest friend in the whole wide world: Mandy!"

"Don't _ever_ give me that introduction again," Mandy growled in his ear.

Billy giggled in response, hiccupping halfway through. Mandy eyed him. She supposed he'd been sitting among those girls all evening so far, drinking himself sick and sillier on punch; an overload of sugar that he seriously shouldn't have gotten to. "C'mon Mandy," he babbled, "we gotta go wash that punch off your purty dress before it turns all red and sticky-like." Billy grabbed her hand and began to drag her away.

"Where are we going?" Mandy asked sharply. "I don't want to go into the hotel; it's sleazy and full of-"

"Nah! We're going to the river, so's you kin wash your dress! C'mon, it'll be fun," Billy beamed at her. Mandy felt something go softer in her chest. Keeping her glare carefully, she allowed Billy to lead her away from the noise and the lights, towards a darker place. She had to blink to let her eyes adjust to the blackness around her. The noise was still audible, but it was very muffled and distant, as if coming from another world. Even the air was a little bit cooler. As her surroundings became more visible, Mandy could see that Billy was leading her through a forest of huge white pine trees.

"Hey, we're almost there!" Billy said, sounding as though he had just won the lottery. At any other time, Mandy would have slapped him or perhaps pinched the area between her eyes, but now, he wasn't quite so annoying. In fact, he wasn't annoying at all.

They reached the river's edge and Billy let go of her hand. He made eye contact with her and didn't bother trying to suppress his grin. Maybe it was a trick of the moonlight, but his smile didn't seem to be coming from mere stupidness this time... it was a happy smile, yes, but calm and innocent. It was the smile of someone who had nothing but sweet thoughts in their mind and sweet intentions in their heart.

Mandy cast her eyes away. Somehow, that smile made her very sad.

"Right," she tried to say briskly. Rather than her usual "let's-get-down-to-business" tone, however, her words issued themselves from her mouth in the form of a whisper.

"Whassat?" Billy said. "You gots to speak up. Otherwise I can't hears ya!" He sat down, feet dangling off the edge of the riverbank, singing a love song under his breath and mangling the lyrics.

"You dragged me all the way over here so I could wash my dress," Mandy replied, her voice found. "And I'm not in the mood for a swim."

"D'aww, I gotcha," Billy said, covering his eyes. "You gots to take your clothes off."

"You'd better not look, Billy." Mandy kneeled down by the water and lifted her punch-soaked dress off, shooting a glance at Billy, knowing in her heart that he wouldn't look at her unless she was decent. Mandy dipped the shoulder of the dress into the clear water, watching little tendrils of artificial coloring remove themselves from the fabric. Oddly enough, even as she watched the water run over her dress, she wasn't thinking about revenge. Of course she would later. Now, though, her thoughts flowed more in the direction of feeling.

What was she feeling for him? The word "friendship" was always used so casually. The word "love" was always used so falsely.

Mandy tried to scrub the punch spot with her fingernails. It was barely noticeable now, just a spot of pink that was slightly darker than what it should be. She lifted her dress out of the water. The cool night air blew about gently- but strongly enough, Mandy hoped, to dry her dress off quickly. Not that she felt awkward. Billy, she confessed to herself, was the only person she'd trust not to peek; Mandy was completely comfortable around him right now. No, better than comfortable. She was _glad_ to have him here.

"How'd ya get punch on yer dress?" Billy asked, bringing her back from her thoughts.

Mandy looked at him. He was still covering his eyes with his hands. "Mindy dumped it on me," Mandy said. The words should have brought anger, but instead, Mandy regarded the situation with apathy.

Well, near apathy.

"Billy," Mandy said, donning her partly wet dress, "how would you like to start the hugest, most disgusting food fight in the history of Endsville?"

"Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!" Billy blurted out eagerly.

She pulled one of his hands away from his eyes, helping him up, surprising him with the thoughtfulness of the gesture. Mandy herself didn't bat an eyelash.

"Let's go."


	8. Of Foodfights & Accidental Arousal

**AN: **Man, that was a looong, long break! I apologize for the delay, but I'm back (in black, yes; I always wear black) and quite full of fluff ideas. So many fluff ideas... No, I haven't gotten to see Spider Queen yet, but that'll probably give me more ideas once I do watch it, so really, it's all good. Have a fun, fun time reading this chapter! I eagerly await your reviews and such. )

Mandy led Billy back to the party, all the while scouting out potential means of ruining it. There were several large jugs in the corner- one with water, one with wine, one with milk- and table after table filled with dripping foodstuffs. Mandy nearly smiled. In front of the DJ, several popular girls- Mindy included- were doing assorted "dance" moves: one girl was slowly unzipping the front of her pleather dress. Mindy was being ground upon by a cool-looking ponytailed boy and was happily returning the favor. Billy watched them for a second, then looked back at Mandy, disconcerted. "D'uhm, shouldn't they, be, uh-"

"Yes," Mandy replied swiftly. "But soon-" she lifted a candied apple and held it at arm's length away- "they'll be taught a lesson. Everyone will."

Billy grinned. "Foodfight-a!"

"Yes."

Mandy hefted the apple, as if testing its weight. Billy watched her eagerly as she glanced at the apple, drew back her arm, and flung it as hard as she could into the center of the dancefloor. The apple hit the girl in the pleather dress- whacking her in her ample cleavage. The girl squealed as the apple left an oozing trail of caramel between her breasts. Somehow, the boy dancing with Mindy managed to seize the other girl while continuing his former activity, and started to lick the caramel off. Mandy winced. "I don't think they're sober. Billy?"

"Yep?"

"Help me." Mandy narrowed her eyes, grabbed two more candied apples, and threw them quickly. This time, they hit other dancers. Several people turned angrily to look at Billy and Mandy.

"Hey!" Billy shouted at them stupidly. "We're throwing food at you!"

. An apple was flung back at him, and it hit him in the eye. Billy giggled. Mandy was half-pleased to see him lift an entire fudge fountain, whinging it directly back, hitting someone and covering almost everyone with a nice thick splatter of melted chocolate. Several cries of anger, and then- 

"FOODFIIIGHT!!!"

The music was drowned out by screeches and bellows. People stopped dancing to throw handful after handful of salad, sandwiches, melted cheese, cups of soda, rotting strawberries, and much much more at each other. Mandy grabbed the entire punch bowl, strode over to Mindy, and dumped it over her. Mindy snarled and grabbed a bowl of pretzels, raising them above her head.

The pretzels were never thrown. Mandy felt liquid blast into her, causing her to fall and curse quietly amidst the confusion. "Deeheeheeheehee! Lookit me, Mandy. I got milk!" 

Mandy wiped the white liquid from her eyes. She looked up. It was true: Billy had found some way to attach the entire milk container to his back, and was delivering heavy blasts of it from the tap of the jug. "Preeeeeetty smart, eh?" Billy continued, looking pleased with himself. "And, ooh, guess what else, Mandy? When I shoot people, the jug makes these glug noises, and it taps my back. It feels kinda good, like some kind of back rub. That's _double smart_, mmhmm!"

"I don't care _how_ good the rubbing feels," Mandy replied through gritted teeth, "you need to stop shooting milk from your tap. Here, help me-" Mandy felt several squishy objects hit her face. She spluttered for an instant. Mindy had recovered, and was launching several now-soggy pretzels in Mandy's direction. Mandy reached out blindly and found the nearest object. As rage burned inside her, she raised the object high- and flung it quickly at Mindy.

"Raw eggs!" Billy blurted out. "I need some of those."

Mandy wiped the pretzel and milk from her eyes. Very shortly after, there were several soft cracking noises: the noises of egg shells hitting something and breaking. A few people turned to bellow in rage. Billy laughed out loud, blew a raspberry in their direction, and squirted them with milk. Mandy ducked as an entire glass bowl was thrown over her. Angrily, she grabbed handful after handful of food and threw them at the offending party.

"My dress!" wailed the girl in pleather. Her zipper had almost been completely yanked open, but her dress was still covering enough- barely- to hide her nipples. She stumbled quickly away on eight-inch heels. There were several other squeals, and soon, people began to follow her. The food gradually stopped being flung about. People were grumbling and filing away from the destroyed party.

Mindy strode over to Mandy furiously. "Bitch," Mindy hissed. She delivered a hard, brutal smack to Mandy's face, then ran away with the rest of the crowd.

Billy and Mandy stood alone in the destruction. Every table was overturned. Every piece of glassware was broken. A slippery coating of food covered the dance floor, and music was still playing softly- a slow song, this time. Mandy's face smarted where she'd been slapped, and her eyes watered up from the sting.

Billy let the milk container slide off his back. "Did she hurt you?" he asked anxiously. He raised one hand, brought it to her face, and stroked her cheek, so gently that she could barely feel his touch. For a moment or two, he simply let his hand rest there. Mandy stood as still as she could. Inside, she was vibrating and quivering ever so slightly, like a plucked bowstring. She didn't know what would happen if she tried to move. Her eyes connected with his, and she must have looked nervous somehow, because he said, "It's okay. I won't touch your face any harder than this, 'cause it'd prolly hurt you. Wanna dance?"

The question was abrupt and random, and, without waiting for her response, Billy placed his hands on the small of her back and moved gently from side to side.

"_Love of mine, someday you will die_..."

Mandy brought her arms up and clasped them around his neck.

"_But I'll be close behind: I'll follow you into the dark_."

She allowed herself to sway with him, dancing slowly in time with the music. His breath, since he was slightly taller than she was, swirled warmly around the base of her neck. Mandy felt a deep, quiet shock inside: when had they moved so close? The music played quietly. Billy caressed her back gently with his thumbs, and shifted so that he was holding her tightly. The thought that she should struggle away from him flitted across, and eventually out of, her mind. She'd struggled away so many times before. She'd always broken eye contact. She'd always pushed him away. She'd always told herself she hated it when he acted that way- and in some ways, she did hate it. It made it so, so difficult for her to act cold.

Cold. The wind blew gently, pushing the cold night air against her back. Billy moved away slightly to let the air wash in between them, and Mandy didn't bother trying to suppress a shiver. "You cold?" Billy asked, right on cue. He moved close again.

The music played its final cord, then stopped. Night sounds took over. The two stopped dancing, and Billy held her gently. He was vaguely surprised when Mandy moved her arms down around his waist, and this time, it was she who clung to him. The shaking that Mandy had felt inside finally burst out. Her entire body quivered. His arms tightened around her. "You're sooooo far away," he said miserably.

"I'm right here, moron."

Billy felt her arms clasp about his back, and he smiled at her. Here she was- hey, and she wasn't fighting when he tried to hug her lots! Billy felt her heartbeat thudding against him. It made him even happier; he was so happy to be close enough to feel her heart against his.

Well, it wasn't directly against his. There were ribs, and blood, and stuff. And flesh. Lots of flesh, on Mandy's part. Her heartbeat was drowned out suddenly as Billy's own heart began to thud uncontrollably against his ribcage. He held her closer, trying to find her heartbeat again- but the closer he held her, the louder his own heart became.

"What is it, Billy?" Mandy asked, sounding annoyed.

"I-" Billy didn't know what to say. He was aware of feeling dizzied, and his mind seemed drugged again.

Mandy's eyes widened for a split second. "Never mind. I know what it is."

Billy's face flushed. He stepped away from her so she couldn't feel anything, and readjusted his pants, which seemed uncomfortably tight all of a sudden. "It's been fun," he whispered loudly to his groin area, "but you gots to go now. Yer makin' me dizzy like I just drank twelve sodas!"

Mandy turned away and walked to the river.

-GABM-

"Hi-ho-a-merry-slow, the farmer went to Hell," Billy sang loudly. He plopped himself down on the riverbank where he had gone an hour ago to help Mandy wash her dress off. Mandy was sitting and glaring across the river. Billy sidled up to her. "I betcha didn't know those were the words," he said to her.

"Those _aren't_ the words," Mandy said icily.

There was a long, long pause. It was about ten o'clock at night, but the stars and the moon gave off enough light for both of the teens to see clearly. "Are you mad? Do you still like me?" Billy asked finally.

"I never liked you," Mandy hissed.

"Oh..." Billy hung his head.

Mandy looked away from him, feeling dirty and ashamed. Where was her infamous heart of stone now? Where was it when she needed it? It isn't my fault, she said to herself, it's Billy's; he's weak. She swallowed her words and stared as the moon glinted cruelly on the water. It didn't seem like a fault when it applied to Billy. It was just... Billy.

Mandy heard a small noise to her right and turned sharply. Billy was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms folded over his knees, and his head buried in his arms. Mandy took his baseball cap off of his head. Leaning against him slightly, she reached out and ran her hand gently through his hair.

"Billy."

Billy raised his head up and looked at her. As Mandy suspected, his eyes were red and his face was tearstained. "Yeah?" he sniffled.

"Don't cry."

"Does this mean you forgive me for, um, you know?"

"There's nothing to forgive." Mandy went back to watching the water flow.

Billy scratched his head, now looking more confused than sad. "Does that mean 'yes'?"

Mandy was silent.

"Silence always means 'yes'. D'aww, thanks, Mandy!" Billy encircled her in a tight, nearly-painful embrace. "You're the greatest. Not mean like my dad who grounds meh! I'm so glad you n' me're cool now. Let's go swimmin'!"

! Mandy's peaceful view of the river was interrupted by Billy's enormous cannonball into it. Billy popped his head above the water, laughing in delight. "C'mon Mandy!" he cried. "If you jump in, I'll catch you!" 

"Fat chance," Mandy said flatly, reclining somewhat on the riverbank and watching Billy splash about like a first grader. He giggled, splashed himself in the face, and giggled again. "Be careful," Mandy said sharply. "It hurts to watch your stupidness. And if you drown- I swear..." Mandy let him have her death glare. Billy looked serious for an instant, saluted her, and resumed his idiot activities.

"Oh-my-gosh-Mandy!" he shouted suddenly. Mandy looked at him quickly. "My shoes are wet!"

"Then you should come out and let them dry," Mandy replied, her patience strained.

"My clothes are wet, too. Wetter than a chupamafluhbluh!"

"Then take them off and dry them," Mandy snapped.

"O-kay," Billy said happily. Somehow, after making his way back to the riverbank, he managed to launch himself up onto the shore, landing on his belly like a penguin. "Teeheehee. I loves being nekkid!"

Billy peeled his shirt off, throwing it on the ground with a wet "plop." Mandy turned away as he began to unbutton his pants, letting them, too, fall to the ground in a heap. "Heyyy," Billy said suddenly, "how come you gets to see me naked all the time and I never-"

"Shut up."

Billy giggled again and threw his clothing casually over a tree branch. "Good thing I'm not wearing white briefs!"

Mandy glanced at him, then quickly glanced away. "You _are_ wearing white briefs, nincompoop."

"Deeheeheehee!"

Mandy took her shoes off and dangled her feet in the cool water. Billy was sweet, and innocent, but he didn't possess ability to keep his urges under control. Not that he'd ever force her to do anything. Mandy exhaled gently in what could have been called a sigh. She'd never lain with anyone and she didn't plan to. Billy, on the other hand, he'd been with Gorla...

Mandy's feet became numb, and she withdrew them from the water.

"Gee, you've got tiny feet," Billy blurted.

Mandy looked at her feet- her ankles. Those disgusting ankles. She glared into the water, silently fuming.

"And purty ankles," Billy went on tactlessly. "And- you're so pretty."

Mandy was caught off guard, and her eyes widened from their usual scowl for one small instant. She let one single word slip from her mouth. "Pretty," she repeated quietly, her tone half-questioning.

"Sure," Billy said happily. He sat down beside her, looked at her, and threw his arm over her shoulder. "Deehee, it's nice, is'nit? Gosh... I bet you have a boyfriend or something..."

Mandy slapped his face. "Don't be ridiculous," she said coldly. "What do I want with boys?"

"Uh, a girlfriend?" Billy replied, looking a little worried.

Mandy slapped him again, harder. "No," she snapped, "that's not what I meant. I meant I don't need a significant other, and I never will."

"But if you _had_ to choose, it'd be a boy, right? Somewhere around your own age? Maybe... maybe a redhead, mmhmm?" He leaned in towards her, smiling foolishly. Hopefully.

"I suppose you think you're being clever."

"Yeah," Billy said. His voice was quiet suddenly. "I'm not too good at that, nuh-uh. But, I, uh, I love... I love it when you're near me. Like tonight, when we were dancing? I'm sorry I made you leave. I couldn't really helps it, ya know?"

Mandy tuned in to every word he said- while glaring absently across the river.

"Uh, Mandy?" Billy said, uncertain.

Mandy turned to look at him, but said nothing. She lay down on the ground, reclining easily and looking up at the stars. Billy gave her a fond glance, looking stupidly endearing, though wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and an overjoyed smile. He was past optimism- his personal cup was way over half-full; it was running over and spilling copiously all over the place. "Well," Billy said confidently, "you were listening to me, after all! Thanks a shmillion, Mandy." He gave a huge, content sigh. Mandy closed her eyes, feeling him curl up next to her- feeling him curl up right into the small of the curve that her torso made. His head rested directly on her ribcage, and almost on top of her breast.

"You're acting like Saliva," Mandy said coolly.

"Yep! Deeheehee."

She opened her mouth, trying to tell him to get off of her. Instead, she fell into a deep slumber, exhausted by the day's events, and warmed by the idiot who slept at her side.


	9. Of Thunder, Too Much Ham, & Cold Nights

**AN: **I have fanart! ...Go to and type in "by: immortal-fool andie000" in the search box; they're quite excellently drawn, and make my innards warm (with joy). Many thanks to immortal-fool (yes, I am too lazy to do all that insane capitalizing stuff). All fanart is VERY appreciated, and if I don't gush about it in an author's note, I'll be sure to in a PM. :)

_Crash_! Mandy's eyes snapped open, and she sat up instantly, knocking Billy away, who had been sleeping with his head on her chest. It was still dark out. At least, it was dark until a cold blue flash of lightning illuminated the world around her. Another crash of thunder was heard, and Mandy's breath was knocked out of her as Billy tackled her with an enormous scream. She tried to shake him off, but he clung to her, wide-eyed and shrieking with each clap of thunder that sounded above them. "Oh, please," Mandy said, rolling her eyes, "it's only-"

_Crash_! Mandy felt her friend quivering against her in fear, just as she had been quivering against him mere hours ago. She stood up and dragged Billy to his feet. "Come on," she shouted at him, as the rain began to pour down.

Billy needed no further encouragement. Seizing her arm in an impossibly frightened grip of steel, he began to tear through the forest, barely allowing Mandy time to grab his pants off the tree branch. Mandy marveled at the fact that he knew his way so well. Of course, the forest wasn't hard to run through- it was old, and had very little undergrowth- and Billy was certainly running. In moments, the two were back at the ruined dance floor. Mandy handed him his pants. "Put these on. No one wants to see you in your see- through little-" _Crash_!

Billy blushed. "Um, actually, my-" Crash!- "aren't that little. Plus they're drenched from all this rain." _Crash_! He screamed as he tried, in a panicked flurry, to struggle into his pants. "Can we please go?!? _Please_?"

-GABM-

"Mandy, it's three in the morning," Mandy's father slurred. There were huge purple circles under his eyes. He looked exhausted, and was standing, half-dressed, in the middle of the kitchen.

Mandy ignored his pitiful state- after all, he was always pitiful- and started dishing him orders. "Set up a guest bed for Billy. Heat up cocoa for me- I'm cold. Put an extra blanket on my bed, too. Where's Mom? When you see her, tell her I expect breakfast later than usual, but if it's cold, she's going to remake it."

"Can she make ham?" blurted Billy.

Mandy stared at her father. "Ham," she said simply. She snapped her fingers, and her dad shuffled off, looking miserable.

"Wow! Yer dad takes orders really good!" Billy grinned and scratched his head. "...Is he a robot?"

"No, Billy, he's just stupid. Much like yourself."

"Do you like your dad?"

The question was pointless, random. Mandy slapped Billy's face, sending him backwards into the wall. "Of course not, you dummy," she snapped.

Lightning flashed outside. Billy crawled back to Mandy and clung to her legs, not bothering to stand up. Mandy simply glared down at him; if she tried to kick him away, she'd fall, perhaps breaking her feeble ankles. She felt Billy's fingers slowly trace the backs of her calves. He suddenly grabbed her legs, giving them an all-out hug, causing her to swear loudly and nearly lose her balance. "What's wrong with you?" she cried.

Billy sensed the alarm in her voice and released her immediately. He fell back a yard or so away from her, looking up into her face, his own eyes anxious. "I offended you," he said, sounding frustrated, ashamed, sad. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he looked away from her.

"You made me lose my balance."

"Aww, so I didn't offend you?"

"I never said that."

Billy scratched his head, trying to puzzle the situation out. "I, uh..." He squinted one eye and looked up at the ceiling. He began to drool slightly, his mind too small to think and keep control of his body at the same time, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Cocoa!" he finally shouted, pointing triumphantly at Mandy's father, who had walked in with a steaming mug on a silver platter.

"That's _my_ hot cocoa," Mandy coolly reminded her friend. She lifted the mug from the tray and sipped at it in front of Billy. Billy's eyes fairly watered again from want.

"Is everything in order?" Mandy said to her father, ignoring the fact that Billy was staring longingly at her mug of hot chocolate.

"Yes, honey," her father said. He winced as if in pain. "May I go back to bed now?"

"Hm," Mandy said. She glanced from Billy to her cocoa mug. "I suppose so."

Billy's face fell. His eye twitched as he watched her swallow the calming, steaming-hot drink, but he made no move to take it from her, as he would have years before. "How warm are the blankets on the guest bed?" he asked suddenly.

"What blankets?" Mandy replied, placing her mug carelessly in her stainless steel sink.

Billy shivered, looking worried. An instant later, he perked up a bit. "Mandy, how's about we-"

"No."

Billy bit his lip. The thought of an entire night, cold, sleepless, and- and alone was more than he could bear. A distant rumbling reminded him both that he was hungry and that the storm had not quite gone away- and, when he moved, his wet pants chafed against his skin. His face settled into a dull, glum expression. "Gotcha," he sighed.

Mandy looked at him. He was still soaked from the rain, and naked from the waist up. Small lines had begun to develop under his eyes- a more weary, weather-worn effect could not have been hoped for. Mandy stopped looking at him. He's not my problem, she told herself. Why the Hell do I care how much sleep the idiot gets?

"You know where the guest room is," Mandy said to him. She flipped the kitchen light off and began to slowly climb the stairs to her bedroom. She turned to look behind her- Billy wasn't following. "Come on," she said to him through gritted teeth.

A few seconds later, Mandy heard him trot up the stairs, stumbling every so often in the darkness. She turned to go into her own room. Behind her, Billy walked into several walls, whispering "Ouch!" each time extremely loudly. Mandy ground her teeth and shut her door tightly after she'd made it into her bedroom.

For the first time in what seemed like ages, she was alone. Mandy exhaled slowly, unzipped her dress, and stepped out of her shoes. Her bed was soft and warm, and her core had been warmed earlier by the hot chocolate she'd had... but she couldn't seem to get comfortable. It wasn't that she wasn't exhausted- she was- but no matter how many sheep she counted and no matter how long she waited, she couldn't sleep. Were her underwear soaked, too? Maybe that was it. She sat up and peeled off her bra and panties- they were indeed wet, and she tossed them carelessly into a corner. Her mother would find them the next day and wash them for her.

Mandy rooted through her closet. Her favorite pink nighty was hanging where it always was. Yanking it impatiently over her head, she rubbed her eyes and padded out of her bedroom, into- of all the surprising places- the guest room.

Billy was laying on the guest bed and staring at the ceiling. He sat up when he heard her coming, giving her a huge, happy grin. "Hey there Mandy!" he whispered loudly. "I've been watching the patterns on the ceiling that happen when the lightning goes crackle, ka-ZAM!" At that moment, the lightning flashed, and Billy giggled as he watched it. The shadow that appeared was little more than a huge trapezoid- except, the longest side was rounded outwards. "That one looked like Abe Lincoln! _Deheehee_!" The lightning flashed again, and the exact same shadow was formed once again. "And- ooh! Ooh! That one was a _mellow orange_!" He covered his mouth with his hands and gave a classic, whispery "Teehee!"

"It looks more like a pie to me," Mandy replied stiffly.

"Don't be dumb! It looks nothing _like_ a pie! Any Brazilian crackmonkey with a butt would be able to tell that," Billy answered confidently. He looked at Mandy, raising an eyebrow: his version of a clever and triumphant air. The lines under his eyes were a little more pronounced than they had been before.

"Aren't you tired?"

Billy's grin faded. "I'm exhausted," he murmured. His grin reappeared as another lightning bolt crossed the sky. "But at least I gots these cool shadows to play with before I pass out!" He swayed a bit, his smile becoming the dizzy, loopy smile that a drunk would have. "Which'll be soon..."

"Get up," Mandy said. "You can sleep in my bed. And, I swear, if you so much as breath a word of it ever again... is this getting through to you?"

Billy pointed limply at the ceiling. "Quakershaker," he stated unintelligibly.

"I didn't think so." Mandy shook Billy's shoulder. "Come on. Stop walking like some sort of stupid cripple-drunk. It's only a few steps."

"Sleep? With you?" A few of Mandy's words had begun to sink in, and Billy, through his exhaustion, was managing a small smile that shone with happiness. "Gee, Mandy, that sure is-"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up before I make you. And this time- if you dare hold me while I sleep, I will personally see to it that you receive a wedgie vast enough to make you _bleed_. Clear?"

"Yeahyeahyeahye..." Billy let his voice trail off, too tired to continue with one-and-a-half more "yeah"'s. Mandy slid beneath her covers, laying on her side, facing away from Billy. For the first time ever, she was initiating something that could be (although she told herself it wouldn't be) romantic. With... Billy? The thought was laughable. Part of her- the part of her that was hateful-ruler-of-the-world material- was filled with scorn. She was Mandy, Mandy the Merciless, Mandy the girl who insisted that romance was for the weak-minded. She was. But... somewhere along the way, there was some sort of catch. She had one tiny little weakness.

Her weakness gave a happy sigh and slid into bed behind her. "Thanks, Mandy!" he whispered cheerfully.

"Don't mention it. Ever." Mandy's inner scornful ruler had always approved things that gave her some sense of satisfaction. Maybe even, in this case, enjoyment.

Mandy's inner scornful ruler gave a demonic smirk and welcomed her decision. Before too long, Billy was snoring gently beside her, and she touched his hair lightly.

Affectionately.

No one ever need know.

-GABM-

"Didn't I tell you not to touch me?" Mandy said icily. Her face was flushed, and her eyes flashed furiously. Whatever exhaustion-drenched decision she'd made the night before, it had been the wrong one, and she'd woken up hatefully.

Billy was standing there, looking confused and extremely upset. No wonder he's upset, Mandy thought venomously; I practically invited him to try something. "Sleep with me"... stupid. Stupid. "I just held on to you in my sleep! S'not like it's never happened before. C'mon, Mandy..." Billy said. Surprisingly, he didn't sound angry or whiny at all. Only ashamed and timid.

"Fine," Mandy replied coldly. "Meet me downstairs for breakfast. Your crime wasn't all that terrible, I suppose, especially considering your moronic need to touch everything you see, but that doesn't mean you have an excuse."

"Yeah!" Billy yelled, pumping a fist into the air. "Breakfast!"

"Yeah," Mandy repeated, glaring. "Breakfast."

-GABM-

"Does Billy want more ham?" Claire asked her daughter in a quivering, servile voice.

"Billy," Mandy said to her friend, "do you want more ham?"

"I sure d_ooo_! Morehammorehammoreham!" Billy wiggled his feet and belched. He'd finished a few platefuls already, but 'a few platefuls' was not nearly enough to satiate his enormous appetite. He grinned. He was always happier when he was eating.

Mandy stretched, still wearing her pink nighty, and took care not to let anything too outrageous pop out of the scanty garment. "I've never been so impressed, nor so disgusted," she deadpanned. "Nine plates. Absolutely horrible."

"Saywha...?" Billy was staring at her absently. When Mandy raised an eyebrow at him, he blushed, and scrambled for something to say. "Uh, nice scenery, huh? Gosh, those are great oranges!"

"We don't _have_ any oranges, Billy," Mandy said, her scowl tearing into him.

"Oh, uh- well, that explains why I've never gotten to squeeze 'em! ...You know, for orange juice." Billy's blush deepened, and he looked down at his plate, embarrassed. Mandy caught herself before she felt any sort of sympathy for him. Sympathy had been leading to physical contact far too often lately.

Mandy picked at her toast. "Obviously," she said coldly, "since the sole purpose of squeezing an orange is to get to the liquid inside."

"Not always," Billy replied happily. "I'd squeeze an orange for fun!"

"That's just dumb. Squeezing oranges can't be 'fun'."

"Sure it can!" Billy said, grinning. "'Specially the ones that're all ripe and large! _Deeheehee_!"

Mandy ignored his last statement and dropped her toast back onto her plate, where it landed with a dry _thunk_. It was getting cold. She'd have to order her mother to make more. "I'm going to go change into some real clothes," Mandy said, scowling at Billy's shirtless torso. "If I so much as hear the stairs creak-"

"D'aw, I wouldn't ever try anything, evers," Billy replied. He was still smiling, but there was a softer quality to his voice, and his smile was slightly sadder. He was hurt because she didn't trust him, Mandy realized.

"Right," Mandy acknowledged bitterly.

Billy didn't quite miss the sarcasm in her tone. "Oh..." he said, voice quiet. His eyebrows slanted downwards slightly. Mandy felt something tug at her conscience- guilt?- and almost went back to tell him that she _did_ trust him, more than anyone else, when it came to things like this.

She couldn't tell him that, though. And so she simply turned away, glaring, and began to stalk up the stairs angrily.

Billy sat alone at the table. Mandy was always so confuzzle-i-fying: she'd let him hold her, and when she did, Billy could feel her relax a little bit, slightly less gloomy. Hey, that meant she was happier! Billy's grin began to reappear, but went away quickly. She always punched him in the face after he hugged her. Did she like hugsies or not? His eye twitched as he tried to think- but, gee, thinking was so, so hard. He gave up on trying to figure things out, and sat at the table, staring glumly at the checked tablecloth.

Claire appeared. She was grimacing, and her thin arms were straining as much as they could to hold on to something. She lifted a huge, dense piece of roasted ham onto Billy's plate. The meat was so heavy that it began to crack the chinaware underneath it. "I hope that's enough for you, Billy," Claire said. Her voice was faint. Exhausted.

"Actually," Billy replied sadly, "I'm not really hungry anymore."

Claire hit the floor in a dead faint. Billy paid no attention, lost in his own trouble. Eventually, however, he glumly lifted the ham from his plate and stuck the whole thing down his throat.

The ham was much too large to go down. He tried to shove it down further, but his arms were too short, and when he tried to yank it back out again, it stuck fast. He felt his neck gingerly. The meat made a huge, ham-shaped lump stick out beneath his head... he needed help. "Hey," he said to Claire, noticing for the first time that she was collapsed on the floor. "So you're passed out, then? Uh-ohs..."

Billy stood up and began to climb the stairs. Once outside Mandy's room, he knocked loudly on her door. "Don't you _dare_ come in," she answered. Though the door muffled much of the sound, her voice did not lose any of its severity.

"Okee-dokes," Billy called back, prodding the lump in his neck and wincing. "I just gots a question for you! ...Have you ever had something really huge thrusted deep down yer throat?"

There was a long, long pause. Billy waited anxiously. Finally, the door opened- Mandy scowled, drew back her fist, and delivered a granite-shattering punch directly into Billy's nose. Billy flew back and smashed into the wall. The impact sent birds twittering around his head; fortunately enough, it also dislodged the ham. Billy gagged a few times, held his stomach, and threw up.

Ham, ham, and more ham. He shook violently as breakfast flooded back out of his mouth. His jaws strained to their limit, his face stretched to unbelievable proportions as he choked out the enormous chunk of meat Claire had last given him. Mandy watched him. Her eyebrows slowly lifted upwards in a rare display of emotion. "Are you okay?" she said

"Huh?" Billy said, confused. "You- you just saids something- concerned-like. Wh-"

"I meant," Mandy said, her glare in place and her teeth gritted, " 'Are you okay' as in 'Are you going to throw up again, because you're disgusting me and getting barfstains on my carpet.'"

"Ohhhh," Billy replied, smiling and nodding. "Yeps! I'm all good, even though my throat is in horrible pain and the inside of my mouth tastes like an _angry badger with bladder problems and a horrible, bleeding prostate who's selfish and vain _ Yes, I'm fine."

"Very well," Mandy said, monotone as usual. "Call Grim. This mess needs to be cleaned up."

**AN: (again)** Yes, yes. This chapter was written more for humor than for romance. Too much BillyxMandy right now would tear my heart out, seing as "right now" is just after watching Wrath of the Spider Queen for the very first time. -cries-


	10. The End

**AN: "Normally, I hate endings, but I'm going to call this one a victory."** Yeah, here's the end. It's a shorter chapter, and I hate ending it more than you can know. Any of you ever been in a stage production? Well, it's like after the cast party of the last show night...what now, after all this work, suddenly you have this empty space. -bashes head aginst wall- Angst, angst, angst...

Billy smiled serenely. Grim was grumbling, trying not to throw up, and scrubbing at the stain Billy had left on the carpet earlier, while Mandy surveyed his work. "You missed a spot," she said tonelessly.

"Right," Grim replied. His voice was bitter. With a petulant, scowling face, he began to scrub harder. The swish, swish that his carpetbrush made sped up. Billy clapped his hands together merrily, as if he were watching something very happy, or very exciting.

"Scrub harder, Grim!" Billy said, interested. "More barfness comes into the soap bubbles that way."

"Put a shirt on, boy," Grim muttered, his thick accent coming through. "You're blindin' da neighborhood."

Billy looked down. In his childhood, he had been chubbier, and, though trim now, he certainly had no trace of muscular abs. The skin of his belly was slightly paler than that of his arms. "Wow! Look, Mandy- I'm ten different colors! DeeheeheeHEEha... I said 'colors'! Deehee-"

Smack.

Billy careened backwards, arms windmilling ridiculously over the staircase. He gave a brisk shriek before beginning to topple over backwards.

Mandy's eyebrows rose slightly. If he fell and broke one of his limbs, or cracked his stupid head open, or was harmed in any way... it would be her fault. As quickly as she could, she reached out, trying to grab ahold of something- a shirt, for example. But there was no shirt. Mandy gave a grunt that would rival that of a tennis-player's, and barely managed to cling to the pocket of his jeans.

He was too far gone. With Mandy still hanging on to him, he fell back-first, shouting madly and rolling down the stairs. Mandy toppled and rolled along with him. Bump, bump, bump. Pain shot through her. She ground her teeth, still clinging to the idiot's pants, not willing to let go after all this.

Crash! Billy and Mandy hit the floor hard. Billy had landed first, giving an "Oof!" of pain, and Mandy had been thrown, conveniently, on top of him. Billy had broken most of her fall, but her body still hurt from tumbling down. "If both my arms aren't broken, Billy, I swear I'm going to-"

"Kiss me."

Mandy felt his hands clasp across the small of her back. His request shocked her, but it was a convenient one; their faces were centimeters apart. Her heart fluttered a bit, and she realized she was still laying on top of him. She turned her head a bit, and... and the backs of her eyes stung.

"Oh," Billy said. He sounded so disappointed, so... dead. Easily, he lifted her off of him, and set her so that she was sitting up against the wall. He sat up as well, taking care to keep his distance, as tears came to his eyes- and he smiled at her. The salt water began to drip down his face, and he continued to give her his usual, innocent smile, minus the joy. "I guess- I guess you don't like me in that way. I'm sorry. Gee, I musta seemed kinda lame... you know, 'cause, all this time I thought you liked me back!"

Mandy covered her mouth with her hands: her chin was trembling.

"And I was figursings on getting married, n'- I don't want to get married to anyone else, Mandy, 'cause girls are gross and have _cooties_! Except you. And when I was with Gorla, know what? I was thinking you and I could buy a little house and have some kids, even though I can't even raise earthworms and know you hate kidses, and I was thinking about how we'd get ta kiss on our wedding day and all those times you let me hug you for shmillions of hours."

"How often do you think of me, you creep?" Mandy said behind her hands. She tried filling her tone with scorn, to make it as angry as it usually was, but her voice was just as wobbly as the lips it issued from.

"I only thought all that when Gorla was with me," Billy said. Tears continued to pour down his face. His smile faded. "You're my bestest bestest bestest friend. And I guess... I guess I just gots to be happy with that. And I can... because it's... great." He leaned into her and gave her a soft, very brief hug. He didn't try to hold her, nor did he crush all of her ribs with an insane bear hug. Mandy felt shortchanged, somehow, as if she'd turned on a faucet full-blast and found nothing but a few drops of water. She sat still, feeling as though she had a very large empty space in her chest, as Billy stood up and walked away. A few seconds later the front door slammed.

She gave a silent sob. The tears building up behind her eyes were finally released, and she tried to cover her face as best she could so neither Grim nor her parents would see her cry.

"Dat's no way to handle tings," a heavy Jamaican voice said above her. Something cold and skeletal found her shoulder. She looked up at Grim, her eyes narrowed, and swatted his hand away.

"I have every right to cry," Mandy said venomously.

"Yeah, you do," Grim acknowledged. "But blast, girl, ya can't just let Billy walk away after he says someting like dat! Especially if you-"

"I don't."

"Den why are ya cryin'?"

Mandy opened her mouth, but for once, she was lost. There was nothing she could say, not even to make as big a dummy as Grim believe her... not at a time like this. And frankly, she didn't care what he thought right now. She felt too sad. No- destroyed. She felt horrible, miserable, and destroyed. It was the exact same way she'd felt when she'd had that dream... about losing him. Except this time, it was real, and there was no one there to rock her. To hold her. "Shut up," Mandy said, her voice hoarse and loud.

"Mandy, dere's no reason for you to let him just go like dat," Grim continued. He was starting to sound angry. "All he did was say he loved you, and if you love him back-"

"_I can't love him back_!" Mandy shouted in Grim's face.

"You do anyway, so too bad!"Grim shouted back at her, his eye sockets spitting flames as Mandy's dripped water. "And if you're just going ta sit dere and be a drama queen about it, den you're no better dan- dan dat Mindy girl!"

Mandy stood up, her heart swirling with blind rage and horrible sadness. "I _hate_ you!" she screamed, placing her hands around Grim's bony neck and rattling him until his head fell off.

"And I hate you!" Grim yelled up at her from the floor.

Mandy grabbed his head and flung it as far as she could away. Grim's body went slack and lay on the ground in a heap, which Mandy took to mean he'd been knocked unconscious again. "Fine," she snapped, her eyes welling up. "Fine."

-GABM-

As she walked the streets, Mandy tried not to think too much about her situation, or what her situation could be, if things went wrong. What had happened to her these past few weeks?

She'd gone soft.

She swallowed this information rather bitterly. She'd gone soft, and so, for the time being, was at a mental disadvantage to many other people. At a physical disadvantage as well, perhaps, in the not-too-distant future... Mandy looked up at the sky. How long had she known Billy? Since she was... what, two? Three? And now she was sixteen.

No matter how cement their friendship was, it had managed to melt into something else, something new to both of them. Billy hadn't even realized it, and Mandy had always refused to accept it, but it was there.

Her eyes snapped open. A familiar figure was walking up ahead. She hadn't recognized him sooner, because he was walking slowly with his shoulders hunched inward and his head down, but it was him. Mandy felt her footsteps speed up, and she began to speedwalk, then trot, then finally run to the boy walking ahead.

"Billy," she said quietly, her steps slowing to match his.

"Oh, hi, Mandy," he said. He didn't sound quite as over-the-top-joyous as he usually did, but his voice still glowed with happiness when he spoke to her. Mandy looked at him. His face was still wet. His eyes were still red. "What's up?"

"You're stupid."

"Yep!" he said, managing to sound sad and triumphant at the same time.

Mandy continued to walk next to him. Every so often, she looked at him through the sunny haze of the day, and every time she did, he was looking at the ground. "Stop," she said suddenly. Billy stopped.

"Yeah?" he said, sounding curious. The sad undertone was still there, and it annoyed her.

"Hold me."

"Wha...?"

"Do as I say."

Cautiously, he wrapped his arms around Mandy's waist, and drew her in tight. One of his hands wandered upwards, and stroked the back of her head. "S'is good?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes." Mandy tilted her head upwards. The two youths stood still for a moment, feeling the warmth of each others' breath on their faces.

Billy felt her heartbeat again, the way he'd felt it at the ruined party, before... everything... happened. Mandy was looking at him now, her eyes wide and pretty- beautiful, Billy thought fondly. My bestest, bestest, bestest...

He kissed her gently on the lips.

He pulled away quickly, expecting her to try to hit him. She didn't. Instead, she leaned in and kissed him back, firmly, and longer this time. When they broke away, Billy looked down at her, eyes puzzled and lids drooping (though not with weariness). "Never walk out of my house that way ever again, you moron. Got it?" Mandy said furiously.

She turned her head away and blinked once or twice. Billy tilted her chin up and towards him so that they were nearly kissing again. He grinned in her face. "So we're cool? Huh? Huh, Mandy? Wanna come to my house? My dad won't say anything this time, I promises! Or we could go down to the river and talk and go skinny-dipping and find my shirt 'cause it's missing- see? I'm half-nekkid! Whatcha wanna do? We gots all day! Heck, we gots fo-_eva_!" He released her from his hug and began to walk again, seizing her hand.

Mandy let him hold her hand as he led her down the street, back to his house.

**End**

**AN:** Really, ending this makes me feel melancholy. Writing it made me feel...melancholy. And the fact that I'm not going to have any more reviews after this last chapter makes me feel... melancholy. Well, fffine. Just be sure to give me a shout on DeviantArt, which I'm planning to create an account for in 3...2...1...!


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